It is generally understood, I believe, that
Edward Dowden's "Spenser, The Poet and Teacher," was important to the
shift in Spenser criticism away from such attitudes as that found in James
Russell Lowell's reference to FQ as a "nest of
nightingale tongues."
My question has to do with Dowden's later (1907)
Atlantic Monthly essay, "Elizabethan Psychology."
Is this the first systematic study of Eliz.
psychology for the purpose of providing a background against which to
understand Elizabethan literature?
Is it, indeed, the first systematic study of
Renaissance materials for the purpose of providing such a background, i.e.,
the first Old Historical study of Eliz. literature?
Jim Broaddus