Enabling Engagements: Edmund Spenser and the Poetics of PatronageEnabling Engagements contributes to current critical debates regarding early modern subjectivity and early modern cultural capital. In stressing the boldness of Edmund Spenser's poetics of patronage, Judith Owens shows that Elizabethans could and did exercise agency within a wide range of institutions. By consistently challenging assumptions of courtly hegemony in early modern society, Owens suggests a new appraisal of the processes of cultural commodification. Enabling Engagements challenges conventional assessments of Spenser as court-centred and of patronal relations in the early modern period as asymmetrical and prescriptive. Owens demonstrates that Spenser exercised a vigorous sense of agency within the close quarters of patronage and courtly culture, fashioning his laureate's role and envisioning nationhood in resistance to the centre. She shows that his independence from court-centred values and tropes informed his poetics from the start of his publishing career, not just as a result of increasing disillusionment with the court. Owens develops detailed readings of Spenser's poetry and his paratextual material in The Shepheardes Calender, the 1590 Faerie Queene, and Complaints, providing contexts that are both broader and more varied than those usually accorded Spenser's poetry. She extends the horizons of The Faerie Queene in particular to include not only court and sovereign but also London, the material conditions of early modern publishing, and Ireland. Bringing together concerns usually approached individually, she shows us a Spenser who is neither the careerist of much recent criticism nor the Elizabethan propagandist of long-standing custom. |
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... means.” It is not at all evident that Petrarchan courtiership offered similar latitude to the petitioner in Elizabeth's court.6 In Spenser's estimation, it emphatically did not. Spenser, we shall see, objects to Petrarchan courtiership ...
... means.” It is not at all evident that Petrarchan courtiership offered similar latitude to the petitioner in Elizabeth's court.6 In Spenser's estimation, it emphatically did not. Spenser, we shall see, objects to Petrarchan courtiership ...
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Contents
The Shepheardes Calender | 40 |
Commendatory Verses | 69 |
The Dedicatory Sonnets | 88 |
Ralegh in The Faerie Queene iii | 111 |
Conclusion | 133 |
Notes | 143 |
Works Cited | 163 |
Index | 177 |
Other editions - View all
Enabling Engagements: Edmund Spenser and the Poetics of Patronage Judith Owens No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
agency appear argue argument assumes authority becomes Belphoebe body Calender career centre claims close Colin concerns consider context court courtly criticism cultural dedicatory demonstrates designs directs draws early modern effects Elizabeth emphasis England English especially established example extends fact Faerie Queene figure finds follow force forest gifts grace ground hand Harvey helps heroic Hobbinol imagines implies indicates Ireland Irish Lady learning least lines literary living London Lord matters means mind mirror moral Moreover moves noble notes offers particular pastoral patron patronage Petrarchan play poem poet poetic poetry political Ponsonby position praise presents proem promotion provides Ralegh readers reading recently reference reflect regarding relations relationship remains represents resistance rhetorical role royal says seems sense Shepheardes Sidney social sonnet sovereign Spenser’s structures suggests Timias Timias’s tion turn verse vision wound writing