Some time during the third quarter of the twentieth century Theodore
Steinberg and a few others (including a persona I was using at the
time) argued in various ways and for various reasons that E.K. was a
Spenserian (or would it be a Shakespearean?) parody of the enemy, a
suspicious and uptight voice of Tradition, a trembling ashy Elder, an
Old Fogey. I'm trying to remember whether we also tossed about the
idea that Rosalind was Lolita, but I can't.
>Picking up something from an earlier post of Penny's: *is* it
>commonly held that Spenser and E.K. are 'manifestly one person'? I'd
>always understood that was an open question.
>
>I ask, having been struck the other day by E.K.'s gloss on the
>reference to 'frendly faeries' in the 'June' eclogue. This is
>admittedly presented as a comment on Hobbinoll's clownish
>superstition rather than on the author of the Calendar, yet it seems
>rather spectacularly un-Spenserian, both in its antipathy to fairies
>as quintessentially Catholic and for its bizarre etymology of 'elf'
>as deriving from Guelfe - an unlikely mistake for a student of
>Chaucer. Of course, Spenser may have been creating a persona quite
>unlike his own - but why bother?
>
>Charlie
>
>
>Website: www.charlesbutler.co.uk
--
a tock is more resonant than a tick
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