BOOKS - Radical Spenser
US $6.70
267498
267498
Radical Spenser
Author: Richard Chamberlain
Year: 2005
Format: PDF
File size: PDF 15 MB
Language: English
Year: 2005
Format: PDF
File size: PDF 15 MB
Language: English
GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup ISBN 9780748621927 This book provides a radical reading of Edmund Spenser and argues for a re orientation in Renaissance criticism It begins by critiquing the new historicist hegemony in Spenser studies and through a series of detailed readings proposes alternative strategies for interpreting the texts of this pivotal Renaissance author which include a politicised new aestheticism eco criticism and pastoral theory Unlike most non new historicist studies Radical Spenser argues that Spenser s texts demand a reading at once political and sensitive to aesthetic surprise Following a polemical Introduction which establishes Spenser s centrality to key problems in contemporary Renaissance studies Richard Chamberlain shows that William Empson s ideas about pastoral are vital for an understanding of Spenser and early modern literature The following chapters discuss Spenser s use in The Shepheardes Calender of a distinctively pastoral logic to problematise the relationship between literature and criticism the ways in which this method informs The Faerie Queene the approach in the central books of the epic to textual and state authority and the final books exploration of political experience Finally by demonstrating the complexity of the critically neglected prose treatise A View of the State of Ireland the book offers an eco critical perspective on Spenser s place in the natural and cultural environments of sixteenth century Ireland Key FeaturesTheoretical intervention encouraging debate and analysis in Renaissance studies Close analysis of key passages offers a new understanding of how Spenser s writing works Broad coverage including readings of Spenser s major poems and his prose dialogue on Ireland
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