A Critical Companion to Spenser Studies

Transcription

1 A Critical Companion to Spenser Studies

2 Also by the same author SPENSER S FORMS OF HISTORY

3 A Critical Companion to Spenser Studies Edited by Bart van Es

4 Introduction, selection and editorial matter Bart van Es, 2006 All chapters individual contributors 2006 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A critical companion to Spenser studies / edited by Bart van Es. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN (cloth) 1. Spenser, Edmund, 1552? 1599 Criticism and interpretation Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Van Es, Bart. PR2364.C dc

5 To Anne Marie

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7 Contents A Note on Quotation Notes on Contributors Brief Chronology of Spenser s Life Acknowledgements ix x xii xiv 1 Introduction 1 Bart van Es 2 Life 18 Patrick Cheney 3 Politics 42 Andrew Hadfield 4 Religion 58 John N. King 5 Gender 76 Elizabeth Jane Bellamy 6 Sources 98 Anne Lake Prescott 7 Works Published Before Bart van Es 8 The Faerie Queene (1590) 139 David Lee Miller 9 Shorter Verse Published Richard A. McCabe 10 The Faerie Queene (1596) 188 Theresa Krier vii

8 viii Contents 11 A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596; 1633) 210 Willy Maley 12 Shorter Verse After Raphael Lyne 13 Texts and Resources 244 Andrew Zurcher Works Cited 274 Index 308

9 A Note on Quotation Unless otherwise stated, quotations from Spenser s poetry are taken from Richard A. McCabe, ed. 1999, Edmund Spenser: The Shorter Poems, London: Penguin and A. C. Hamilton ed. 2001, The Faerie Queene, 2nd edition, Harlow: Longman. Quotations from A View of the Present State of Ireland are taken from Edwin Greenlaw, et al., ed. 1949, The Works of Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, Vol. 10, The Prose Works. Quotation from the commentary in the Variorum are acknowledged in parenthesis. ix

10 Notes on Contributors Elizabeth Jane Bellamy is Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. She is the author of Translations of Power: Narcissism and the Unconscious in Epic History (1992) and has published widely on psychoanalysis and literary theory. Patrick Cheney is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Penn State University. He is the author of Spenser s Famous Flight: A Renaissance Idea of a Literary Career (1993) as well as other studies on the careers of Marlowe and Shakespeare. He is editor of Worldmaking Spenser: Explorations in the Early Modern Age (1999) and Imagining Death in Spenser and Milton (2003) and is co-editor of the new Oxford edition of the collected works of Spenser. Andrew Hadfield is Professor of English at the University of Sussex, and Director of the Centre for Early Modern Studies. He is the author of Spenser s Irish Experience: Wilde Fruit and Salvage Soyl (1997), and editor of the Longman Critical Reader Edmund Spenser (1996) and The Cambridge Companion to Spenser (2001). He has co-edited Spenser s A View of the State of Ireland (1997) as well several other works. In recent years he has published Shakespeare, Spenser and the Matter of Britain (2004) and Shakespeare and Republicanism (2005) and worked on the 4th edition of the Norton Critical edition of Spenser s selected works. John N. King is Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University. He is the author, amongst other works, of English Reformation Literature: The Tudor Origins of the Protestant Tradition (1982), Spenser s Poetry and the Reformation Tradition (1990), and Milton and Religious Controversy: Satire and Polemic in Paradise Lost (2000). Theresa Krier is Professor of English Literature at Macalester College. She is the author of Gazing on Secret Sights: Spenser, Classical Imitation, and the Decorums of Vision (1990) and Birth Passages: Maternity and Nostalgia, Antiquity to Shakespeare (2001). She is the editor of Refiguring Chaucer in the Renaissance (1998), co-editor of Luce Irigaray and Pre-Modern Culture: Thresholds of History (2004), and a former editor of The Spenser Review. Raphael Lyne is a Fellow of New Hall and Lecturer in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Ovid s Changing Worlds: English Metamorphoses (2001) and of a forthcoming study of Shakespeare s late work. x

11 Notes on Contributors xi Richard A. McCabe is a Fellow of Merton College and Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University. His publications include Joseph Hall: A Study in Satire and Meditation (1982), The Pillars of Eternity: Time and Providence in The Faerie Queene (1989), Incest, Drama and Nature s Law (1993), and Spenser s Monstrous Regiment: Elizabethan Ireland and the Poetics of Difference (2002). He is the editor of Edmund Spenser: The Shorter Poems (1999). Willy Maley is Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of A Spenser Chronology (1994), Salvaging Spenser: Colonialism, Culture and Identity (1997), and Nation, State and Empire in English Renaissance Literature: Shakespeare to Milton (2003). He has co-edited A View of the State of Ireland (1997) as well as several collections of critical essays, including Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict, (1993) and British Identities and English Renaissance Literature (2002). David Lee Miller is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina. He is the author of The Poem s Two Bodies: The Poetics of the 1590 Faerie Queene (1988). In recent years he has published Dreams of the Burning Child: Sacrificial Sons and the Father s Witness (2003) and worked on the 1590 Faerie Queene for the new Oxford edition of the complete works. Anne Lake Prescott is Helen Altschul Goodhart Professor of English at Barnard College, Columbia University. She has published extensively on Spenser and the Renaissance, focusing in particular on the influence of French writing on English literature. Her books include French Poets and the English Renaissance: Studies in Fame and Transformation (1978) and Imagining Rabelais in Renaissance England (1998). She is a co-editor of Spenser Studies and the Norton Critical Edition of Spenser s poetry. Bart van Es is a Fellow of St Catherine s College, and Lecturer in English Language and Literature at Oxford University. He is the author of Spenser s Forms of History (2002). Andrew Zurcher is a Fellow of Queens College, Cambridge. He is co-editing Spenser s diplomatic letters for the Oxford edition of the Collected Works and is working on a book on Spenser s legal language and thought. As well as articles, he has produced numerous online resources for the study of Spenser.

12 Brief Chronology of Spenser s Life c Spenser born in London 1561 Enrols in Merchant Taylor s School, London, as poor scholar 1569 Feb. Publication of Jan van der Noot s A Theatre for Worldlings containing Spenser s translations of Visions by Petrarch and Visions of Du Bellay May Enters Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, as a sizar (or poor student); friendship with Gabriel Harvey Begins Takes his BA degree at Cambridge, 11th out of 120 candidates 1576 Takes his MA degree at Cambridge, 66th out of 70 candidates 1577 July Possibly in Ireland, as Irenius in A View of the Present State of Ireland claims that he witnesses the execution of Murrogh O Brien 1578 Apr. Secretary to John Young, Bishop of Rochester Dec. In London, dwelling at Mistress Kerke s 1579 In London, dwelling at Leicester House Oct. 27 Marries Maccabaeus Chylde in Westminster, with whom he will have two children, Sylvanus and Katherine Dec. 5 The Shepheardes Calender entered in Stationers Register, printed soon after 1580 July 15 Lord Grey appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, Spenser to be appointed his secretary Nov. 10 Grey orders massacre of Irish rebels at Fort d Oro, Smerwick, Spenser possibly a witness Dec. Spenser-Harvey Letters printed 1981 Mar. 22 Spenser becomes Clerk to the Controller of Customs on Wines Dec. 6 Spenser Granted lease of a Friary and Mill at Emniscorthy, Co. Wexford 1582 Aug. 24 Obtains lease of New Abbey, Co. Kildare Aug. 31 Lord Grey recalled to England, Spenser remains in Ireland 1583 May 12 Spenser appointed Commissioner for Musters in Co. Kildare 1584 July Probably becomes Clerk of the Council of Munster, serving as deputy to Lodovic Bryskett 1588 Quotations from The Faerie Queene appear in Abraham Fraunce s Arcadian Rhetorike 1589 by 24 Mar. In occupation of Kilcolman Castle xii

13 Brief Chronology of Spenser s Life xiii 1590 Spenser in England The Faerie Queene printed Dec. Complaints entered in Stationers Register 1591 Spenser in Ireland Daphnaïda printed. Feb. 25 Granted life pension of 50 by Elizabeth Complaints printed. Dec. 27 Colin Clout Come Home Againe dated at Kilcolman Ongoing disputes with Lord Roche over land Publication of Axiochus (probably wrongly) attributed to Spenser 1594 Further disputes with Lord Roche June 11 Marries Elizabeth Boyle with whom he has one son, Peregrine 1595 Colin Clouts Come Home Againe printed. Amoretti and Epithalamion printed Second edition of The Faerie Queene, Books I VI, Fowre Hymns, and Prothalamion printed. A View of the Present State of Ireland composed A View of the Present State of Ireland entered in Stationers Register, but not printed. June Tyrone rebellion breaks out Sept. 30 Spenser made Sheriff of Cork Oct. Spenser s house at Kilcolman falls to the rebels Returns to London, paid 8 for delivering a letter to the Privy Council 1599 Jan. 13 Dies in London. Buried at the expense of the Earl of Essex 1609 First folio of The Faerie Queene printed, including Mutabilitie Cantos 1611 First folio of collected poetical works printed 1620 Funeral monument erected in Westminster Abbey 1633 Publication of A View of the [Present] State of Ireland

14 Acknowledgements Sincere thanks are due to those who helped make this book a reality. All of the contributors have been a pleasure to work with, offering a true embodiment of the ideal of a scholarly community. In particular I would like to thank Patrick Cheney for his generous investment of time at the design stage of this book and to Andrew Zurcher for judicious scrutiny at the close. Other friends and colleagues Andrew Hadfield, Richard McCabe, Colin Burrow, David Norbrook, Christopher Tilmouth, Bruno Currie, Tore Rem, Michael Suarez, Peter McDonald, Sos Eltis, Duncan Wu, Jeremy Dimmick, and David Womersley to name but some have also provided invaluable support along the way. I am grateful to Paula Kennedy and Helen Craine at Palgrave Macmillan for their commitment to the book over the years and to Jaya Nilamani and her team for their careful work of copy-editing. Finally, love and thanks go to my children Josie, Beatrice, and Edgar and to my wife, Anne Marie, to whom this book is dedicated. xiv