I'd like to step back from one of Professor Hamilton's assertions below,
namely: "We don't know, we can't know, we weren't intended to know, and so
why bother?" Granted that we don't know, can't know, and weren't intended
to, I still think we were meant to bother. It's part of the response the
poem solicits from us. Not all of Spenser's historical allusions work this
way, but lots of them do: they advertise a secret but withhold the answer
(if indeed there is one). Richard Rambuss wrote a pretty good book on this
element of Spenser's poetry, and while I don't find it persuasive in every
respect, I do think the underlying account of Spenser's ways of flourishing
secrecy is very astute.
David Miller
At 04:41 AM 11/11/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>Re Teares of the Muses 208: IF one assumes that pleasant Willy who is dead
>of late refers to some known historical figure, one makes the rounds of
>possible names. Oram's guess: 'possibly a pastoral pseudonym for Sir Philip
>Sidney who died in 1587'; McCabe's guess: 'possibly Sidney who died in
>1586'. There are any number of possibilities to make up an interesting and
>quite harmless if distracting game for readers to fill in as they wish
>within the boundaries of one who died around that time and whose death was
>worthy of notice. Your challenge is correct. We don't know, we can't know,
>we weren't intended to know, and so why bother? One answer: an article or
>note giving some other identification contributes to the valuable Spenser
>industry. A.C. Hamilton
>
>
>At 08:28 PM 2000-11-10 +0300, you wrote:
> > Dear Spenserians,
> >
> > I would be grateful if somebody could tell me why it is
> >possible to suggest that in line 208 of "The Teares of the Muses"
> >"Pleasant Willie" stands for a pastoral pseudonym for Philip
> >Sidney. I learned this from William Oram's delightful commentary
> >to the text in The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems but
> >unfortunately, I can not find any other sources to read more
> >about the grounds for such identification.
> >
> > Irina Burova,
> > St. Petersburg State University
> >
> >
>
>A.C.Hamilton
>[log in to unmask]
>Cappon Professor Emeritus
>Queen's University, Canada
>Phone & Fax: 613- 544-6759
David Lee Miller
Department of English
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506-0027
859-257-6965 (office)
859-252-3680 (home)
859-323-1072 (fax)
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