Shepheards Devises: Edmund Spenser's Shepheardes Calender and the Institutions of Elizabethan Society - Hardcover
In this study of Edmund Spenser's 1579 poem The Shepheardes Calender, Robert Lane uncovers hidden dimensions of Spenser's earliest important work by embedding it in the historical context of Queen Elizabeth's reign and showing how thoroughly it engages the fundamentally sociopolitical issues that confronted English society of the time.
Rejecting earlier formalist and new historicist readings that viewed Elizabethan culture as fundamentally aristocratic, Lane reveals this poem's thoroughgoing identification with the nonelite of Spenser's society. By including such popular forms as fables, proverbs and woodcuts and by drawing on the vernacular literary tradition of Piers Plowman and Skelton's "Collyn Clout," Lane argues, the Calender valorizes the voice and culture of the subordinate classes in the highly stratified Elizabethan social order. The perspective of those who were politically and culturally disenfranchised is integral to the poem's critique of the Elizabethan institutions: the Crown and church, the social hierarchy, the practice of patronage, and the economic system.
As Lane notes, discussion of such issues in Spenser's society was dangerous because the Crown claimed a prerogative to govern public speech. Lane describes how Spenser, while challenging this prerogative, used strategies that protected him from official retaliation. Important among these was the inclusion of voices within the text that seem to present an orthodox position but are in fact critically scrutinized. Lane goes on to show that by taking up controversial social and political issues, the Calender also raises the question of poetry's social role. Whereas most modern scholarship reads the poem as a monovocal treatise on aesthetics that is firmly aligned with the Court, Lane demonstrates that contained within the Calender's poetic discussion is a debate that actually interrogates the social status and function of courtly poetry and begins to outline an alternative conception consonant with it own practice.
Rejecting earlier formalist and new historicist readings that viewed Elizabethan culture as fundamentally aristocratic, Lane reveals this poem's thoroughgoing identification with the nonelite of Spenser's society. By including such popular forms as fables, proverbs and woodcuts and by drawing on the vernacular literary tradition of Piers Plowman and Skelton's "Collyn Clout," Lane argues, the Calender valorizes the voice and culture of the subordinate classes in the highly stratified Elizabethan social order. The perspective of those who were politically and culturally disenfranchised is integral to the poem's critique of the Elizabethan institutions: the Crown and church, the social hierarchy, the practice of patronage, and the economic system.
As Lane notes, discussion of such issues in Spenser's society was dangerous because the Crown claimed a prerogative to govern public speech. Lane describes how Spenser, while challenging this prerogative, used strategies that protected him from official retaliation. Important among these was the inclusion of voices within the text that seem to present an orthodox position but are in fact critically scrutinized. Lane goes on to show that by taking up controversial social and political issues, the Calender also raises the question of poetry's social role. Whereas most modern scholarship reads the poem as a monovocal treatise on aesthetics that is firmly aligned with the Court, Lane demonstrates that contained within the Calender's poetic discussion is a debate that actually interrogates the social status and function of courtly poetry and begins to outline an alternative conception consonant with it own practice.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Robert Lane is an assistant professor of English at North Carolina State University.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherUniv of Georgia Pr
- Publication date1993
- ISBN 10 0820315141
- ISBN 13 9780820315140
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages256
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 10.97
Shipping:
US$ 13.40
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Shepheards Devises - Edmund Spensers Shepheards Calender And The Institutions Of Elizabethan Society
Published by
University Of Georgia Press
(1993)
ISBN 10: 0820315141
ISBN 13: 9780820315140
New
Hardcover
First Edition
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. 1st edition. Cloth, dj, F/F. xii+240pp, b/w illustrations, index, a nice fine copy. New. Detailed study of Spensers 1579 poem, uncovering hidden dimensions by looking at the poem in the context of Queen Elizabeths reign & showing how it engages the sociological & political issues of Elizabethan society. Spencer is shown to have identified with thew common man and not the Elite of the age. 700 grams. Seller Inventory # 18056
Buy New
US$ 10.97
Convert currency