Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- Preface: Geography and the sea
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: Britain's island idea
- 1 Community of water
- 2 Queen of Sparta
- 3 The discipline of the sea
- 4 Ark of war
- 5 Blowing a dead coal
- 6 The British empire in Europe
- 7 The world in an island
- 8 Anti-continentalism
- 9 What continent?
- Conclusion: floating islands
- Appendix: Duck Language (1724)
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Community of water
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- Preface: Geography and the sea
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: Britain's island idea
- 1 Community of water
- 2 Queen of Sparta
- 3 The discipline of the sea
- 4 Ark of war
- 5 Blowing a dead coal
- 6 The British empire in Europe
- 7 The world in an island
- 8 Anti-continentalism
- 9 What continent?
- Conclusion: floating islands
- Appendix: Duck Language (1724)
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Hyrkanian or Caspian Sea is enclosed on all sides by the land, like an island in reverse.
Ptolemy, Geography Book 7No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were … Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVIIJohn Donne wrote the above famous passage in 1624. This was the year when, at a time of profound danger for European Protestantism, England entered the Thirty Years War. Therefore, as Brendan Simms has argued, Donne's must be understood as not simply a moral but also a geopolitical rumination. Donne's point, however, was not simply that England, one of the clods which could be washed away, was part of Europe, its continent and maine. Europe's geography was continent and islands in complex relationship. Donne, while using geographic language, was not talking about geography. The ‘maine’ of which islands, promontories and continents were all part was ‘Mankinde’. At a time of religious crisis ‘No man’ could escape his fate as a creature of one God, or therefore doubt for whom the bell tolled.
Early modern writers using geographical language frequently turn out to be talking, not about geography, but about politics, history or religion.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- When the Waves Ruled BritanniaGeography and Political Identities, 1500–1800, pp. 11 - 30Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011