Description: Christopher Highley's book explores the most serious crisis the Elizabethan regime faced: its attempts to subdue and colonize the native Irish. Through a range of literary representations from Shakespeare and Spenser, and contemporaries such as John Hooker, John Derricke, George Peele and Thomas Churchyard he shows how these writers produced a complex discourse about Ireland that cannot be reduced to a simple ethnic opposition. Highley argues that the confrontation between an English imperial presence and a Gaelic "other" was a profound factor in the definition of an English poetic self.
Review Quotes: "In this insightful study Christopher Highley illuminates the complexities of the discourse on Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth.... especially valuable to scholars of early modern colonialism is his reminder that colonial analogies may serve not only to further an imperial project but also to question and challenge it." Shakespeare Quarterly