> Bart van Es
> I think you might be remembering Cowley's remarks about Spenser --
there
> is something (affectionate) about The Faerie Queene as nursery literature
> there (See Wells, Spenser Allusions in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
> Centuries, Studies in Philology, Texts and Studies, 68-9 (1971-2), 260).
In his essay 'Of Myself' Cowley does indeed report that he came upon *The
Faerie Queene" as a child, and was thus 'made a poet as irremediably as a
child is made a eunuch' (a phrase someone should bring to the attention of
Harold Bloom). But I think he found it in his mother's room rather than the
nursery. But perhaps this isn't the passage you have in mind - and a quick
scan of my shelves reveals that the book in question has gone AWOL, so I
can't check.
Charlie
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