Dear Sidney-Spenser list members,
Is there a classical or Renaissance precedent for Spenser's declaration that
in _The Iliad_ Homer "ensampled a good gouernour" in the character of
Agamemnon? As many have noted, Homer's Agamemnon seems a particularly poor
"ensample" of a good leader. If there was a tradition of reading Agamemnon in
the manner Spenser suggests, which of Agamemnon's qualities did commentators
praise? In the _Variorum_, William Fenn DeMoss cites Aristotle's _Politics_
and _Ethics_ as the sources for Spenser's interpretation; however, none of the
quotes DeMoss presents from those works seems to offer strong praise for
Agamemnon (especially when read in their original context rather than in
DeMoss' extracted form). Likewise, Priam in Book III of _The Iliad_ praises
Agamemnon's people, but he says nothing about Agamemnon's quality of
governance itself creating such a praiseworthy populace.
I'm teaching _The Iliad_ this semester and I just can't get Spenser's
remarkable interpretation out of my head!
Scott Lucas
Scott Lucas
Department of English
The Citadel
171 Moultrie St.
Charleston, SC 29409
(843) 953-5133
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