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Article: Anglophilia, American style. (admiration for everything that's English)
- Article from:
- American Scholar
- Article date:
- June 22, 1997
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Phi Beta Kappa Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Anglophilia came to me almost as naturally as hemophilia to its unfortunate victims - it was, that is to say, in my blood. It began with my father, who was born a Canadian and thus into Dominion status and who had enormous admiration for the English. Along with stories from the Bible, his first readings to me were stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and of Robin Hood. So it was from the English, or at least in an English version, that I gained my first notions of honor and integrity and social justice. From the first, my heroes had English names and spoke in English accents.
The head of my mother's family was her mother, a widow and grand ...