Recognition of Sovereignty - Politics of Empire in Early Anglo-Scottish Literature

In this timely and impactful contribution to debates over the relationship between politics and storytelling, Lee Manion uncovers the centrality of narrative to the European concept of sovereignty. In Scottish and English texts traversing the political, the legal, the historiographical, and the literary, and from the medieval through to the early modern period, he examines the tumultuous development of the sovereignty discourse and the previously underappreciated role of narratives of recognition. Situating England and Scotland in a broader interimperial milieu, Manion shows how sovereignty's hierarchies of recognition and stories of origins prevented more equitable political unions. The genesis of this discourse is traced through tracts by Buchanan, Dee, Persons, and Hume; histories by Hardyng, Wyntoun, Mair, and Holinshed; and romances by Malory, Barbour, Spenser, and Melville. Combining formal analysis with empire studies, international relations theory, and political history, Manion reveals the significant consequences of literary writing for political thought.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Arthurian precedent and English empires; 2. Scottish contestations of sovereignty: imagining equivalence; 3. Empire extended: histories of sovereignty in early modern England; 4. Narratives of resistance in early modern Scotland; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

About the author

Lee Manion is Associate Professor of English at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He is the author of Narrating the Crusades: Loss and Recovery in Medieval and Early Modern English Literature (2014).

Product details

• Authors: Lee (University of Missouri) Manion, Manion Lee
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 31.10.2025
• EAN: 9781009633413
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0963341-3
• No. of pages: 400
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; England, Scotland, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, European history: medieval period, middle ages, European history: Renaissance, Classic and pre-20th century poetry, Political structure and processes, Classic and pre-20th century plays, Literary studies: c 1400 to c 1600, Relating to King Arthur / Arthurian