How British is 'Rule Britannia'?

It is seen by many as an unofficial British national anthem - but an Oxford University academic believes she has discovered that Rule Britannia was heavily influenced by Greek literature. Dr Cressida Ryan of Oxford University's Classics Faculty has found clear traces of Greek literature and culture in the famous song written by James Thomson - a link that has never been made before. Dr Ryan said: 'While studying the Greek and Roman influences on William Mason's Caractacus , I decided to look at James Thomson, Mason's contemporary, who wrote Rule Britannia and I found clear evidence that Thomson's poem had an eye to classical Greek literature. Rule Britannia, like Greek literature, contains elements of the sublime - a term used to describe how aesthetic works affect someone drawing on ancient ideas of pity, fear, terror and the soul. Dr Ryan explained: 'In eighteenth-century London he mixed with men such as Robert Walpole, Dr Arbuthnot, Alexander Pope and John Gay, who focused on the sublime in their writings. The emerging concept of the sublime was shaped by changes in their choices of Greek and Roman philosophical models. "The blast that tears the skies, Serves but to root thy native oak? portrays the oak as the symbol of Britain, as the olive symbolised Athens" Dr Cressida Ryan 'Thomson combined Greek tragedy with English nationalistic writing early in his career - in 1738 his play Agamemnon opened at Drury Lane and although this was unsuccessful, Greek tragic influence remains discernible in his later work such as Edward and Eleanora .