Theatre and empire

<i>Theatre and empire</i> explores the genesis of British national identity in the reign of King James VI and I. While devolution is currently decentralising Britain this book examines how the idea of a 'united kingdom' was created in the first place. It does this by studying two things: the political language of the King's project to replace England Scotland and Wales with a single kingdom of Great Britain and cultural representations of empire on the public and private stages. The book argues that between 1603 and 1625 a group of playwrights celebrated a new national consciousness in works as diverse as Middleton's <i>Hengist King of Kent</i> Rowley's <i>The Birth of Merlin</i> and Shakespeare's <i>Cymbeline</i>. Specifically Jacobean interdisciplinary studies are few compared with Elizabethan and Caroline works but the book attempts to redress the balance by offering a fresh appraisal of James Stuart's reign.