Definition of "England"

Gaunt ...This royall throne of Kings, this sceptred Ile,This earth of maiesty, this seate of Mars,This other Eden, demy Paradice,This fortresse built by Nature for her selfe,Against infection and the hand of warre,This happy breede of men, this little world,This precious stone set in the siluer sea,Which serues it in the office of a wall,Or as moate defensiue to a house,Against the enuie of lesse happier lands.This blessed plot, this earth, this realme, this England...Is now leasde out...That England that was wont to conquer others,Hath made a shamefull conquestof it selfe...

1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene i]

And did those feet in ancient timeWalk upon England’s mountains green?And was the holy Lamb of GodOn England’s pleasant pastures seen?...I will not cease from Mental Fight,Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,Till we have built JerusalemIn England’s green & pleasant Land.

1804, William Blake, Milton, Vol. I, Preface

What is England? She is Elizabeth... To live alone, to go alone, to reign alone, to be alone,—such is Elizabeth, such is England...England has two books: one which she has made, the other which has made her,—Shakespeare and the Bible. These two books do not agree together... Shakespeare thinks, Shakespeare dreams, Shakespeare doubts... Moreover, Shakespeare invents.

1864, Victor Hugo, chapter 6, in Amédée Baillot, transl., William Shakespeare

England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted passage, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income.

1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. I

England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire.

1983, William S. Burroughs, The Place of Dead Roads, page 203

"This is England," he explained. "Tell someone it's a procedure, and they'll believe you. The pointless procedure is one of our great natural resources."

2012, Maureen Johnson, The Madness Underneath

Had they responded this way in France or America, this wouldn't have surprised me, but wasn't everyone in England supposed to be a detective? Wasn't every crime, no matter how complex, solved in a timely fashion by either a professional or a hobbyist? That's the impression you get from British books and TV shows.

2013 March 25, David Sedaris, "Long Way Home" in The New Yorker