麻豆约拍

Elizabethan and Renaissance expert Jonathan Bate looks at the flowering of culture that took place under Elizabeth I and shaped our image of England forever. Famed for exploring the new world and laying the foundations of the British Empire, the Elizabethans also focused on domestic and inward discovery.

This programme looks at how a distinct Isle of England found its place on the world map.

By leaving their home shores, the Elizabethans began to think about what was special about a small island called England. Seen from afar, they asked themselves what they were defending: what were their values? Their ideal was the traditions of the city-state of Venice.

Venice was an island state, an enemy of the Pope, and rich from the fruits of global trading. Could not the new England be the same? The Elizabethans were unsure. The Venetians were also a cosmopolitan entity - and in sixteenth century London their most famous representative was a fictional merchant called Shylock.

We examine how Italians were portrayed by the new playwrights as corrupt murderers, the Spanish as scheming pirates, the French as vainglorious effete. But who were the English? Tales from Elizabethan voyagers, who invented travel writing in English, gave the English a sense that they needed their own qualities. The bigger the world seemed the more distinct England needed to be.

Producer: Matthew Dodd