Tom,
Yes, I had thought to have heard from you on this point, or some other.
Aside from the important question of voice and view (now *there's* an
interesting word), which Terry has already raised--and to her short
question I would only stress again that Spenser is an author/poet who
demonstrates throughout his works his consummate grasp of the problems and
opportunities of pitching voice, and who recognizes that his audience is a
group trained up in the habits of ironic self-distancing--I would note:
1. You are quoting very reductively from an *extremely* long and
complicated *set* of passages, which cover many different subjects; and
the way you have reduced the excerpt here confuses things to your
advantage. 'This' of line 3 in your quotation, for example, does not refer
to 'famine' in line 2, as you would lead us to believe, nor does the
'course of reformation' of the last part refer directly to this process of
famine. For example, the passage that you quoted so carelessly mixing and
matching antecedents actually reads, in part (i.e. without ellipses):
yett is it most true and the reason also very
readie for ye must conceyve that the strength
of all that Nacion is the kerne Galloglasse Stocaghe
horsman & horseboye the which havinge bene never
vsed to haue any thinge of their owne & nowe livinge
vppon spoyle of others make noe spare of anie thinge
but havocke and confusion of all they meete with whither
it be their owne Frendes good or their foes, And if thei
happen to gett never soe great spoyle at anie tyme
the same they waste & consume in a tryce as naturally
delightfull in spoyle thoughe it doe them selues noe
good & on the other syde whatsoever they leave vnspent
the soldier when he cometh theare, spoileth & havocketh
likewise soe that betwene bothe nothinge is verye
shortlie lefte & yet this is verie necessarie to be don
for the soone finishinge of the warres & not onlie in this
wise but also all those subiectes which border vppon those partes are
either to be removed & drawen awaye or likewise to be spoiled
that the enemie maie finde noe succoure therbie for what the
soldier spares the rebell will surelie spoyle: /.
Where you write 'this is verie necessarie to be don...', linking 'this' to
famine, in fact Spenser's 'this' refers not to famine, but to the spoiling
of the soldier in the clause previous--this use of the demonstrative
pronoun, taking up the matter of the immediately preceding clause, is
quite characteristic of Spenser. Irenius is apologizing for the necessity
of spoiling the householders who happen to be in the path of the itinerant
rebels who require cutting off. He is not proposing that they be starved.
He also offers them relocation.
2. It is crucial to recognize that Spenser's limited support for 'seige'
tactics is restricted to what he identifies as an ultimately
intransigently recalcitrant element. This is not the population we are
dealing with here, but a comparatively small group of people that Spenser
(and many Irish people with him) considered to be outlaws. Spenser goes
much further than many other contemporary tracts in suggesting that a
universal pardon be offered first. He also promotes pretty strenuously
various plans for resettlement and naturalization of the Irish after
conquest--strategies designed to strip them of their culture and
ideological commitments, but also to create peace for them, as well as for
the English. Again, while I am not defending the ideological position, I
do think it important that Spenser devotes so much time to the propaganda
campaign both before and after his military solution. This has
traditionally been read as icing on the cake of his calculated
colonialism, and I don't want to dispute that, much; but I think there may
also be value, when looking at the problem from the perspective of someone
who was in the colonizing party, in considering that many *lives* are
spared by privileging propaganda (what we now call diplomacy) over ethnic
cleansing. Why does Spenser take such time over the cultural polemics of
his treatise? He imagines the Irish surviving, and adopting English law,
much as the English had adopted Norman law.
3. I am not defending English policy, or even Spenser, much. I
acknowledged this. I do think that Spenser's approach to the question of
the pacification of Ireland is more complex than is generally assumed by
casual readers or by scholars. I do think that there is a kind of optimism
to his approach to the situation, an optimism that I do not see much of in
our current engagement with the Middle East. I do think that there are
deep-running misgivings in A view, misgivings that have something to do
with dialogue form, but which are also betrayed by apparent
inconsistencies in the program of the treatise itself. I tend to think
that the treatise has to be read pretty carefully as a *whole* text, and
that it has to be considered carefully in relationship to the other kinds
of advice and the other plans that were circulating at the time.
4. I am perfectly happy to disagree with you.
andrew
> "Yet sure in all that [Desmond] war there perished not many by the sword,
> but all by the extremity of famine, which they themselves had wrought...
> havoc and confusion... yet this is very necessary to be done, for the soon
> finishing of the war... Therefore, by all means it must be foreseen and
> assured that after once entering into this course of reformation, there be
> afterwards no remorse or drawing back, for the sight of any such rueful
> object as must thereupon follow nor for compassion of their calamities,
> seeing that BY NO OTHER MEANS IT IS POSSIBLE TO RECURE THEM and that these
> are not of will, but of very urgent necessity." --Irenius, *View* (ca.
> Smerwick and famine discussion), emph. added; also McCabe, *Spenser's
> Monstrous Regiment* 91-3. I think "foreseen...necessity" and blaming the
> victim trumps allegorical disassociation here. --Tom Herron
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