NINETEENTH CENTURY VIEWS OF “ENGLISHNESS.” (COMMENT).

NINETEENTH CENTURY VIEWS OF “ENGLISHNESS.” (COMMENT). Tom Shippey, who is an authority on the languages of the British Isles, had a review in the Times Literary Supplement for October 17 of Robert J.C. Young’s THE IDEA OF ENGLISH ETHNICITY. Michael Byrne says in his comment that: “Most of the terms Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Scandinavian and well as Ancient Briton as mere modern inventions made by people with their own view of history.” Shippey makes a related point: “Possibly it was Walter Scott who popularized the idea, often repeated, that ‘Englishness’ never really existed per se, being instead a roll-up term incorporating native Celt, long-established Saxon, invading Dane, and invading Norman….” I take it that “Englishness” then is a term arising in the early nineteenth century that gives a name to a complex product of local interactions over hundreds of years.