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Yes, the article sounds like a howler. In its current status as purloined letter, what sounds silly (to me, anyway) is less its connection between the study of literature and capitalism (I accept what Guillory says about that) than its confidence that “bourgeois” and “monopoly capitalists” refer to specific groups and are secure terms. That certainty might be one origin of the conspiracy theory of Spenserians that Spenserians themselves find bewildering. I guess what I’m getting at is that Spenser’s class analysis, so to speak, is more subtle and less decisive. What is historically interesting about terms like "aristocratic" or "noble" for me is not how they *are* defined but how they fall apart periodically for Spenser (or how he makes them fall apart—I can never decide). In contrast, one problem with the “bourgeois paradigm” is it assumes a secure opposition between bourgeois and aristocratic, and assumes a secure definition of each (warrior vs banker, feudalism vs capitalism). (Brenner, by the way, has two totally brilliant analyses of this – one is Bourgeois Revolution and Transition to Capitalism, in The First Modern Society [I think that’s the title] a festschrift for Lawrence Stone; and an article in New Left Review in 1977 where he takes Dobb’s side and goes after Sweezy and Braudel) . I don’t think there is any simple opposition between labor and capital, or between nobles and bourgeoisie, in the Mammon episode, though there is clearly some sort of social opposition starting to appear that doesn’t exist until the 16th century. The Mammon episode doesn’t describe some perennial problem of aristocracy, but instead struggles with a pretty specific definition—and struggles, I think, with making this specific problem look like a perennial one. Similarly, is Red Cross a noble, or a social climber who becomes, or is made into, a noble by the end of the book? I don’t think Spenser can answer that question. Spenser’s concern with the “origin of wealth” in Mammon reminds me of Shakespeare’s sonnet 144, where in the last line “angel” means both the theological thing and a coin. Shakespeare spends (so to speak) a lot of energy struggling to figure out what exactly angel means (what the origin of its value is), but can’t pin it down – his speaker has to “live in doubt.” Is this a religious problem or a money problem? the question is the historical problem--it's the speaker's question, and as a question it defines his social position. A very short way of saying all this, I guess, is that class oppositions should be deconstructed, and that Spenser, unlike the purloined version of Kogan’s article, seems to deconstruct them all the time. Sorry for the long post – I’m avoiding writing my syllabus... cw ---- Original message ---- >Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 22:54:57 -0700 >From: Jean Goodrich <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Re: article review >To: [log in to unmask] > >True, though I think Marx was a little less polite. > >But that last sentence, "The recent revival of his poetry is part of the efforts >of the monopoly capitalists to mobilize all their cultural despotism in >self-defence," seems more of a disparagment of the people who pulled Spenser >out of the mothballs, as it were, than of Spenser himself. It is probably true >that we are all to some extent complicit in a capitalist system, but there are >far better ways to succeed as a capitalist than going into academia. I'm >assuming of course that the people who revived Spenser were academics. I just >can't see the Enron execs of the late 60s reading Spenser. > >Besides, given the context of the article, written in 1970, look what Spenser's >work has allowed us to do in terms of critique of culture and the establishment >since the poststructuralist "revolution." There isn't one category that sets >the "us" apart from the "them" where Spenser hasn't given us something to work >with. There are too many cracks in the facade, too many hooks to grab onto. If >Spenser's work were all bread and roses, it wouldn't tell us anything about the >rise of capitalism, the deployment and exercise of power, anxiety about the >female Other, fear about the racial and ethnic Other, the inherently human >imperfection of religious systems, etc. And it would be deadly dull, too. > >Still, if we fall back to the criticism that Spenser is just another dead white >male in the canon of other dead white males -- well, what's that ubiquitous old >saying? "Know thine enemy?" We can teach Spenser paired with Lanyer or Mary >Wroth, or Books 4-5 with the Tain Bo (especially the fall of Radigund). Or how >about some literature translated from Arabic where the Saracen is the good guy, >and the Christian and westerner are demonized? Wow, not that would be a great >syllabus to teach right about now. > > >Jean Goodrich >English Department >University of Arizona > > >Quoting "Peter C. Herman" <[log in to unmask]>: > >> At And I tried to think of just one Spenserian that I've met, just >> >one, that I'd put in league with the "monopoly capitalists to mobilize all >> >their cultural despotism." I mean, Spenserians?! The author is not a >> >Renaissance scholar, perhaps she has mistaken Milton for Spenser? >> >> >> Didn't Marx say something to the effect of Spenser being a bootlicker for >> capitalists? Is that perhaps what the article's author had in mind? Maybe? >> >> Peter C. Herman >> Dept. of English >> SDSU >> Christopher Warley Assistant Professor Department of English Oakland University 248-370-2256