ABSTRACT
The constituent elements of D. H. Lawrence's short story 'England, My England' may be related both to Edwardian preoccupations with Englishness and to the conditions of the text's production, revision and reproduction. Representations of the nation's modern territoriality which led to the outbreak of war are thus 'turned into the archaic, atavistic temporality of Traditionalism', and it was images of this idealised landscape which were to recur in recruitment posters and popular war songs. It is thus no accident that in the first version of 'England, My England' Evelyn is represented as coming from 'an old south-of-England family', nor that in its expanded form the tale lays stress upon Egbert's involvement with the folk-song revival. The trajectory of 'England, My England', in its outward swerve from the fetishised Englishness of the South Country towards disintegration and breakdown records, with all the blindness of Lawrence's creative insight, a crucial moment of English cultural history.
