"In this book, the major works of Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare are considered in the context of the historical 'pulling together' of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and, in particular, the ways in which both authors metaphorically manipulate, for political and religious purposes, the geographical reality of the 'north-east Atlantic archipelago'. Fantasies of metamorphosis abound, as does a longing for the landscape to endorse a particular political agenda." "Traditional views about Spenser and Shakespeare require some modification. Spenser's work seems at first defensively conservative when compared to Shakespeare's radical and nuanced explorations of the relationship between nationhood and state-formation. By a consideration of biography, reputation, genre, and each writer's approach to the imaginative manipulation of the landscape, Shakespeare and Spenser, though still distinct, emerge as more alike than has hitherto been observed."--BOOK JACKET.

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