ABSTRACT
Exile, and exilic literature, has long and powerfully imposed itself upon our imagination. Ever since individuals and peoples first sought refuge in foreign climes from political, religious or racial persecution, the written word has attempted to inscribe the myriad psychological, social and cultural experiences of the displaced on readers’ hearts and minds. Such writing, it should be conceded, has not always evoked the complexities of exile; one well-placed commentator has observed that ‘literature tends to show the romantic side of exile. In reality, people live in exile submerged in trauma’.1 There is little question, however, that the resurgence of exilic writing precipitated by the seismic geopolitical upheavals and forced migrations of the last century has genuinely extended our knowledge and deepened our understanding of exile. Consequently, there is rich potential for marshalling this modern sensibility to the momentous deracination of earlier centuries. In this respect, the mid-to-late seventeenth century is an abundantly fertile area of enquiry. There are many different ways of looking at the English Revolution and its aftermath, and exile provides a fruitful new lens through which to view this pivotal period in the history of England and the British Isles.
