Discover Top Posts Tagged with #englishness

I'm drunk so take this how you will but I'm honestly kinda in a bind in terms of mt sense of my own culture.

I'm English, like, seriously so. I have some Scottish in me at some distance (my mum's maiden name is literally Murdo), but other than that I have fuck all meaningful connections to any non-English cultures.

But like, English culture has been so ground down by (primarily) Capitalism, as well as colonialism and such, that I have a hard time pointing to stuff that I can say 'that's my culture'. I can say I do change-ringing (look it up), which is definitely English in a meaningful sense, at least to me.

But other than that, I'm struggling. What id the folk costume of England? Can't picture it. What is the folk music of England? Well there's a lot of that, but aside from the specifically regional corpus I can say I have a heritage connection to, most of it is 'this version of this song was recorded from [someone from X county I have no connection to]' and which probably wasn't meaningfully passed onto the generation in their place anyway (I've had someone complain at me that folk is middle-class to which I've thought 'it's only those MFs reading the books that have veen able to maintain it!'). What is English cuisine? Well [insert joke here]. My accent is a mongrel even, that I have trouble with still (like in England people have trouble have trouble placing me outside of 'northern').

Honestly I'm not sure what even calling myself 'English' rather than say 'Northern' or even 'Northumbrian' (to be super regionally specific) gains me, but on the other hand, I can't be so pessimistic that there isn't something resembling an 'English' culture (or at least 'Germanic British') that isn't couched in colonial and capitalistic conceits.

#me irl #rant #identity #englishness

I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanised farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Tolkien Letters

Tolkien wrote the following in a letter to a fan, Deborah Webster, in 1958. Many have taken this to cement the view that Tolkien was especially averse to the French Language, and indeed things French in general (especially food). Indeed various biographers and interpreters have tried to suggest some specific reason why this should be the case: why Tolkien should have developed such an extraordinary characteristic. But truth be told I don’t think there is a specific reason necessary, beyond that Tolkien was a normal, patriotic Englishman; among whom such an aversion is normal and unremarkable even if he was an Oxford don.

Some hold the view that the ordinary Englishman has 'always' had a thing against the French; and this was only amplified by having them as 'allies' in both 20th century world wars. Aversion to the French was as common among World War I and II veterans as was an admiration-of, and friendliness-towards, the Germans. I’m not really sure this is quite true if one reads the correspondence of first world war soldiers fighting in France. Historians have been re-appraising this tired trope for some time now. Still, others point out that a pervasive (but mostly unspoken) dislike of Frenchness is just normal among the English lower classes; including the non-professional middle class, from which Tolkien emerged. There are many reasons for it - for example the Norman Conquest imported a French-speaking ruling class, leading on to centuries of cultural division, destruction and oppression. And France was an old (often primary) military enemy and political threat (or rival) for many centuries up to Napoleon Bonaparte. The backbone of the British Army who fought against the French has always been, so the argument goes, the working class.

I think a more convincing reason for Tolkien’s aversion to French ideas and the culture they sprung forth from than the French as an individuals or a nation. As a professor of literature versed in several languages, he understood the importance of French upon the English language but a part of him didn’t like that. Tolkien always hated that William the Bastard bested King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, because it prevented a full flourishing of Anglo-Saxon culture and allowed French to "pollute" the language.

I suspect at the real heart of Tolkien’s visceral dislike was the association between France and political and social radicalism generally starting from the very idea of the French Revolution and one that gutted religion from the heart of French society in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

These ideas could be traced down from the 18th Century English radicals like John Wilkes and Charles James Fox down to the modern day socialism of the early 20th Century and the rise of Marxism across Europe from the ashes of the first world war, particularly in Russia of course. Those who find it strange or sinister that Tolkien was French averse are mostly upper middle class and/or progressive bourgeois English - for whom to be Francophile ("the food, the fashion, the sheer style") is a natural as their complementary (and more visceral) despising of Englishness. This description covers nearly all of those people who would be inclined to publish books about Tolkien. ...Or else they are Americans; who just don't get Europeans and our tribal tiffs. ...Or they may instead be Scottish or Irish; for whom the French have always gleefully served as just another stick with which to beat the English. And I say this as someone who has an Anglo-Scots father. What is perhaps surprising is that Tolkien qua Oxford Professor did not adopt the Francophilia of his new tribe in academia. But Tolkien's retaining of natural, patriotic, 'common folk' Englishness, was a sign of that same integrity that made him the genius he was.

#tolkien #jrr tolkien #quote #english #french #francophile #culture #society #literature #language #englishness #hobbit #icon

Tea is still believed, by English people of all classes, to have miraculous properties. A cup of tea can cure, or at least significantly alleviate, almost all minor physical ailments and indispositions, from a headache to a scraped knee. Tea is also an essential remedy for all social and psychological ills, from a bruised ego to the trauma of a divorce or bereavement. This magical drink can be used equally effectively as a sedative or a stimulant, to calm and sooth or to revive and invigorate. Whatever your mental or physical state, what you need is 'a nice cup of tea'. Perhaps most importantly, tea-making is the perfect displacement activity: whenever the English feel awkward or uncomfortable in a social setting (that is, almost all of the time), they make tea. It's a universal rule: when in doubt, put the kettle on. Visitors arrive; we have our usual difficulties over greeting protocol. We say, 'I'll just put the kettle on'. There is one of those uneasy lulls in the conversation, and we've run out of weather speak. We say, 'Now, who'd like more tea? I'll just go and put the kettle on.' A business meeting might involve having to talk about money. We postpone the uncomfortable bit by making sure everyone has tea. A bad accident -- people are injured and in shock: tea is needed. 'I'll put the kettle on.' World War Three breaks out -- a nuclear attack is imminent. 'I'll put the kettle on.' You get the idea. We are rather fond of tea.

Kate Fox, Watching the English, p312

#Kate Fox #watching the english #englishness #tea #tea is a big deal

Wood Street, Manchester.

Here is a Thing About England

You cannot imitate Englishness. It cannot be done. We will say "yes, very English!" to you but there is a HUGE probability that we know you're trying and doing it well. Englishness is so diverse. In my county, you can travel ten miles to the next town and the accent will be different. A pony trained on one side of Cumbria can be taken to the other, no more than forty miles, and you will struggle for a time because the dialect is different. There isn't a "Northern Accent" or a "Southern Accent" but with practice you learn to guess approximately where people are from.

I don't sound like my town. People don't believe me when I say I'm from here because my accent isn't quite right. I'm obviously West Cumbria, but without the sort of accent you can place exactly into one locality. This is because my dad dropped his accent when he moved here and is far less "common" than we are.

#Englishness #english #britain #Uk #Language #accent