Bruce:
In response to your question of how we use this essay in teaching, I'll
weigh in to say that when I teach Book II nowadays it's usually in an
upper-level course on allegory (we read at least three books of FQ--last
time we did the whole poem--and then some 19th and 20th c. allegories:
The Scarlet Letter, The Crying of Lot 49). In that context I do assign
the Greenblatt chapter in relation to FQ II, because I think
Greenblatt's reading usefully complicates a more traditional
understanding of what we are doing when we read FQ as an allegory. By
which I mean, Greenblatt seems to be proposing that the Bower has what
Fredric Jameson would call a "subtext"--a political meaning the poem
isn't "conscious" of. Of course the Proem to Book II makes any such
distinction between text and subtext iffy--and I like Greenblatt's
reading for that very reason. Now you see it, now you don't--"it" being
the imperial theme.
Greenblatt's reading is also consistent with the way I've been reading
(and teaching) Book II's "fashioning" of Guyon ever since I was taught
by A. S. P. Woodhouse to see his career as predicated on an ignorance of
"reality" that, as the Knight of Temperance, he can't afford to lose.
Jane Hedley
Katherine Eggert wrote:
> One way to gauge a piece of criticism's influence is to see whether
> other influential critics are still extending, countering, and generally
> getting worked up about its specific arguments, rather than just citing
> it respectfully in a "these questions were first brought to the fore by
> . . . " kind of way.
>
> In just the current decade, the Spenser chapter from RENAISSANCE
> SELF-FASHIONING has been addressed in detail by such smart early
> modernists as Roland Greene on colonialism ("A Primer of Spenser's
> Worldmaking" in the Cheney/Silberman collection WORLDMAKING SPENSER),
> Jennifer Summit on biblioclasm ("Monuments and Ruins: Spenser and the
> Problem of the English Library"), Joseph Campana on the heroism of
> suffering ("On Not Defending Poetry: Spenser, Suffering, and the Energy
> of Affect"), the late Cynthia Marshall on eroticism and violence (THE
> SHATTERING OF THE SELF), Judith Anderson on Acrasian aesthetics (READING
> THE ALLEGORICAL: CHAUCER, SPENSER, SHAKESPEARE, MILTON), both Clare
> Carroll and Thomas Herron on Ireland (respectively, CIRCE'S CUP and
> SPENSER'S IRISH WORK), Louis Montrose on "Spenser and the Elizabethan
> Political Imaginary," and Harry Berger on ideology as sexual
> scapegoating ("Archimago: Between Text and Countertext"). And those are
> just a few names from what could and should be a very long list.
>
> So yes, I'd say influential!
>
>
> Katherine Eggert
> Associate Professor and Chair
> Department of English
> University of Colorado
> 226 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0226
> (303) 492-7382
> [log in to unmask]
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: Bruce Danner
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 8:13 PM
> Subject: Your Thoughts on Greenblatt's Chapter on Spenser from
> Renaissance Self-Fashioning
>
>
> Colleagues:
>
> I wondered if I could sample your opinions on Greenblatt's chapter on
> Spenser from Renaissance Self-Fashioning. Some of my questions include:
> Do you (and, if so, how do you) use this essay in teaching the Faerie
> Queene and/or framing Spenser in relation to Elizabethan culture as a
> "teaching tool". Does this essay inform your views on Book 2 in
> particular, the poem in general, the imperial/Irish Spenser, or in other
> ways? Do you detect its influence on Spenser reception, particularly
> among non-Spenserians? I'm not trying to rehearse the initial 'buzz'
> over its view of Spenser so much as to assess it as a canonical piece of
> criticism, and whether it is still as influential as it is often assumed
> to be.
>
> Obviously, there are lots of other topics related to the chapter as
> well, all of which are encouraged.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bruce Danner
> St. Lawrence University
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