“England, My England” in W. E. Henley’s poem, D. H. Lawrence’s short story, and G. Orwell’s essay: Experimental cartography

The article sets out to trace the imaginary boundaries of England in W. E. Henley’s Pro Rege Nostro, two drafts of D. H. Lawrence’s story England, My England, and G. Orwell’s essay England Your England. Unlike a proper cartographical object, “England” of these four texts cannot be mapped with any accuracy as its boundaries tend to shift even within a single work. The dimensions of “my England” across Henley’s, Lawrence’s, and Orwell’s works vary between a quarter of the globe, highlighted in red, and a dot on the map (marking an old cottage in southern England). The root cause of this ambiguity lies in the specific circumstances that shaped English national identity in a certain historical period, in particular, the coexistence of two “English empires:” Great Britain and Britain’s overseas empire (K. Kumar). Henley’s appeal to “England, my England” provokes a highly emotional contemplation of England and what is English. Each text is believed to offer a practical solution that completes the building of national unity by drawing on the fervour in Henley’s poem, the idea of a utopian recovery of the nation in Lawrence’s story, and the consistently developed feeling of national unity in Orwell’s essay.

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