Edmund Spenser's Irish Experience: Wilde Fruit and Salvage Soyl

by Andrew Hadfield

Overview

Spenser's Irish Experience is the first sustained critical work to argue that Edmund Spenser's perception and fragmented representation of Ireland shadows the whole narrative of his major work, The Faerie Queene. The poem has often been read in specifically English contexts but, as Hadfield argues, demands to be read in terms of England's expanding colonial hegemony within the British Isles and the ensuing fear that such national ambition would actually lead to the destruction of England's post-Reformation legacy. Where A View of the Present State of Ireland attempts to provide a violent political solution to England's Irish problem, The Faerie Queene exposes the apocalyptic fear that there may be no solution at all. The book contains an analysis of Spenser's life on the Munster plantation, readings of the political rhetoric and antiquarian discourse of A View of the Present State of Ireland, and three chapters which argue the case that the apparently Anglocentric allegory of The Faerie Queene reveals a land gradually—but clearly—transformed into its Irish "Other."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198183457
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/31/1997
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.69(w) x 8.81(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

University of Wales

Table of Contents

AcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Spenser, Colonialism, and National Identity1. The Contexts of the 1590s2. That they themselves had wrought: The Politics of A View of the Present State of Ireland3. Ripping up ancestries: The Use of Myth in A View4. Reading the Allegory of The Faerie Queene5. The Spoiling of Princes: Artegall thwarted, Calidore Confused6. All shall changed be: Two Cantos of Mutabilitie and the Sense of an EndlingAppendix: Works Mentioning Ireland in the Title Entered into the Stationers' Register During Elizabeth's ReignSelect BibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

"Hadfield's well-researched analysis presents valuable insights into how Spenser's Irish experience influence The Faerie Queene."—Choice

From the Publisher