Hi -- might I recommend A.B. Giamatti's home-run of an essay on Queen
Elizabeth in the Spenser Encyclopedia... I found it very rich and eloquent.
Also, from an Irish POV, critics have frequently and recently been arguing
that Munster land and preferment (and, to begin with, posts in Dublin and
Kildare) was a true opportunity for the knight-errant Spenser and not only
(or at all) an "exile"; cf. Willy Maley, Richard McCabe, and Andrew Hadfield
on this point:  though McCabe is wary of calling Kilcolman Spenser's "Home"
from the poet's own POV: in CCCHA, the "Home" is ironized, always
Hap-hazard.  I'm not sure I buy that, but...

A good argument that Spenser WAS in "exile" but with a Protestant prophetic
purpose in mind in Ireland can also be found in John Breen's
primary-source-rich work in Spenser Studies as well as the 1996 issue of
Irish University Review (dedicated to Spenser in Ireland), and of course his
1996 dissertation.

After exile Odysseus of course ended up back AT home, violently so.

--Tom Herron  


On 10/18/05 6:18 PM, "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> All ˆ
> 
> I welcome Kevin‚s inquiries and his self-motivated interest in Spenser‚s
> Faerie Queene.  Perhaps there are other non-academic lovers of Spenser lurking
> out there: it behooves us to welcome them.
> 
> On the subject of Spenser‚s position vis a vis Queen Elizabeth and her court,
> others are much more knowledgeable than I.  I think Kevin has oversimplified
> and misconstrued the relationship.  Any attempts to get it right have to be
> tentative and speculative, and all sorts of modern assumptions and prejudices
> are apt to get in the way.  Spenser‚s sense of himself and his interests is
> enigmatic, and not identical with the masks through which he speaks in his
> poem.  Likewise, his images of the queen, her "mirrors more than one," and the
> world around her are charged with ambivalence.
> 
> Some might say that ambivalence, contradictions, enigmas and evasions are
> „detrimental‰ to poetry, but I think that with Spenser, these characteristics
> are a large part of what‚s fascinating and life-like.
> 
> Several years ago, one of my undergraduate students said, in connection with
> Spenser‚s attitude toward people in power (the Queen in particular), that she
> was reminded of modern-day „celebrity stalkers.‰  My student meant this as a
> put-down, and it‚s a cheap shot, but there‚s something to it.  Harry Berger‚s
> brilliant remarks on the „envious have-nots‰ in Spenser‚s poetry, here and
> there in his ŒRevisionary Play‚ essays, substantiate this.
> 
> On the other hand, Spenser was not unaware of the power conferred upon poets
> within humanistic culture: the great deeds of princes would have little
> lasting value, were it not for the praises conferred upon them by poets and
> other writers who keep the muses‚ „everlasting scryne‰ stuffed with „news that
> stays news.‰
> 
> To come to the question at the end of Kevin‚s posting: among the „critical
> works that discuss this,‰ I would suggest starting with Louis Adrian
> Montrose‚s essay, „The Elizabethan Subject and the Spenserian Text,‰ which is
> conveniently included (slightly condensed) in the Norton Critical Edition
> (third edition) of selections from Spenser‚s poetry.
> 
> Cheers, Jon Quitslund (George Washington U., emeritus)