ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the early modern English nation as a cultural artefact that blurs the distinction between nation and natio, or birth, and how that blurred distinction was articulated in drama through the metaphor of illegitimacy. Illegitimacy was not only a revolt against patriarchal systems, it was also a political issue in Britain's dynastic political system. If genealogy is so fundamental to the stability of nation and society, then illegitimacy is a destabilising force that–because it also undermines the concept of a stable, known genealogy for the individual–is capable of subverting ideas of national identity. To understand the full impact of the topos of illegitimacy, it is necessary to view it as both a literary construct and as part of the political language of early modern England. Illegitimacy remains, as it was in early modern England, a crucial strategy both for excluding, and for justifying the exclusion of, unwanted individuals.