The Construction Of National Identities Of The Three Kingdoms And Anglocentrism

The formation of British national consolidation has experienced a long and tortuous process.In 1603,King James I came to the crown of England and proclaimed Union of the Crowns,which indicates that the British national integration became the new historical tendency.And debate on the Union and quest for national independence of the three kingdoms were marginalized by the orthodox history.Consequently,the topical concern of the tension between the separate and distinct national identities of the three kingdoms and the British national consolidation was the general motif of political satire and literary creation.Cymbeline is found to have the political discourse of this historical topic,and by circulating it on the stage Shakespeare implies the crucial role of the Anglocentric consciousness among the tension between the separate and distinct national identities of the three kingdoms and the British national consolidation.By placing Cymbeline in the historical context in which British national consolidation was formed,this thesis tries to point out the historical text and literary text that elaborate the tension of the formation of distinct national identities of Wales,Scotland and England with the implementation of British national consolidation,and observes the impacts of Anglocentrism on this national issue,with the concepts of “Circulation of Discourse”,“the Textuality of History” and “the Historicity of Text” of the new historicism as the theoretical perspective.Accordingly,it reveals that,in the light of the Anglocentric discourse,the tragic development and conciliatory ending allude to Shakespeare's imaginative intervention into the political idea of reconciling the confrontations between the maintenance of national distinctiveness and the implementation of unified “Britishness”.Apart from the Introduction and Conclusion,the main part of this thesis consists of three chapters.In Introduction,the theoretical perspective,essential issues and main content is summarized.Additionally,the importance of Cymbeline as historical text and the achievements and shortage of the domestic and overseas studies on it are noted.In the first chapter,by observing the role of Wales in the history of British national consolidation,the dramatic plot with Wales as its central setting,which alludes to the historical reflection of Wales incorporating into the Kingdom of England,is pointed out.The crisis of Welsh national identity and the impacts of Anglocentrism are embodied in the text of narrating the anglicizing process of Wales.By exploring the subtext of Posthumus' s Scottish identity in Cymbeline,Chapter Two reveals that the marginalized identity of Scotland as an independent nation resulted from James I's project of the Union of England and Scotland.Meanwhile,it also talks about Shakespeare's political allusion to the antagonism and confrontations between England and Scotland.The reunion of Posthumus with Cymbeline indicates that the contradiction is eventually settled down in the name of realizing the general and common interests of James' s “Great Britain”.Chapter Three demonstrates that the story line centering on Cymbeline's court remarks the national narrative of the deconstruction of the English national identity in the transitional period from the Elizabethan era to the Jacobean age,by virtue of examining the metaphorical projection of the rulership of Elizabeth and James on the monarchical images of Cymbeline and the Queen.It also implies the historical change of English national identity from “Englishness” to “Britishness”.Moreover,Cymbeline's submission to and reconciliation with Rome evokes James' s foreign policy of peace and his aspiration for the realization of pax Britannica.This thesis concludes that,in the light of the national narrative of forming the national identities of the three kingdoms,Shakespeare's political allegory shows a significant attempt and an imaginative intervention to reveal the contradictions between the national distinctiveness of the three kingdoms and the British unification.Considering the historical identities and national relations of the three kingdoms,the final reunion and reconciliation of Cymbeline embodies Shakespeare's polyphonical demonstration of James' s proposition of “Great Britain” and his foreign policy of peace.Furthermore,it claims that both the British historiography and Shakespeare's histories in Cymbeline have a tinge of Anglocentrism.