'Albion': It's in the Soil
By MICHAEL SCHMIDT

Published: October 26, 2003


The "young baron of England" in "The Merchant of Venice" is a
composite creature: "I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round
hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his behavior everywhere."
Natives of Britain who are not Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish are
hard to characterize. The borders of the eight kingdoms were erased
long ago. An imperial heart beat, but the empire is over. Judging from
contemporary cultural policies, England, riddled with postcolonial
guilt, effaces its identity in an effort to be hospitable to
newcomers.

In "Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination," an essay in
cultural anthropology, Peter Ackroyd tries to define that identity
through art and literature. What distinguishes the English from other
imaginations? he asks. He starts with the Anglo-Saxon culture,
Caedmon's seventh-century hymn, the lives of the saints, "The Voyage
of St. Brendan," ancient metalwork, stone carving and manuscripts.
"Within the body of Anglo-Saxon writing itself lie the origins of
subsequent English literature, whether in the form of dream-vision or
riddle, history or travel, biography or elegy, verse moral or
pastoral. There is also the matter of epic." He admonishes us: "It
would be profoundly mistaken to underestimate the sophistication of
Anglo-Saxon literature; there is no progress in English writing but,
rather, a perpetual return to the original sources of inspiration."

Peter Ackroyd
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