Overview
- Offers a major new interpretation of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene
- Presents the necessary sixteenth-century context to understand The Faerie Queene as historical allegory
- Argues that Spenser’s storytelling teaches nobility through fairy history, as the Bible teaches godliness through Hebrew history
- Compares Edmund Spenser with Sir Philip Sidney, exploring their disagreements over the queen and her place in the providential order of history
Part of the book series: Queenship and Power (QAP)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Spenser’s Method and Artistry
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Front Matter
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Spenser’s Elizabeth
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Front Matter
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The Faerie Queene in Context
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- Edmund Spenser
- The Faerie Queen
- Queen Elizabeth I of England
- Elizabeth I
- Karl Marx
- Gloriana
- allegorical representations of Elizabeth
- New Heaven
- Book of Revelation
- English Protestants
- John Bale
- John Fox
- Henry Bullinger
- Millenarian movement
- Spenser's apocalypticism
- Patristic tradition
- Elizabethan history
- Sir Phillip Sydney
About this book
Reviews
“Spenser’s Heavenly Elizabeth is a tour de force and a gift to the Renaissance scholarly community. It provides a rich and detailed analysis of Spenser’s magnum opus while at the same time, providing a rich historical narrative of the English Reformation(s).” (Jesse Russell, Christianity & Literature, Vol. 70 (3), September, 2021)
“Seldom have I read a book on Spenser's Faerie Queene so erudite, adroit, and able to correct our usual readings of Spenser's treatment of Elizabeth and the Reformation. Beautifully written, this is a book to treasure.” (Anne Lake Prescott, Helen Goodhart Altschul Professor of English Emerita, Barnard College, USA)
“A remarkable study. Stump’s refusal of simplistic explanations allows the reader to reach a real understanding both of the Queen, and of Spenser’s motivation and method in portraying her. Scrupulous and detailed, Stump’s book shows us Elizabeth’s England as interpreted by the only poet she—rightly—rewarded with a pension.” (Roger Kuin, Professor of English Emeritus, York University, UK)
“This book makes an original, penetrating case for reading The Faerie Queene as a historical allegory. It’s the most persuasive and illuminating attempt I’ve seen to understand the poem as an historically specific document, and it should become an essentialresource for understanding Spenser’s account of sixteenth-century history.” (William A. Oram, Helen Means Professor of English Emeritus, Smith College, USA)“This book reveals the queen behind Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Placing Spenser’s epic poem in the context of the tumultuous sixteenth century, Donald Stump offers a groundbreaking reading of the poem as an allegory of Elizabeth I’s life. By narrating the loves and wars of an Arthurian realm that mirrors Elizabethan England, Spenser explores the crises that shaped Elizabeth’s reign: her break with the pope to create a reformed English Church, her standoff with Mary, Queen of Scots, offensives against Irish rebels and Spanish troops, confrontations with assassins and foreign invaders, and the apocalyptic expectations of the English people in a time of national transformation. Brilliantly reconciling moral and historicist readings, this volume offers a major new interpretation of The Faerie Queene.” (Donald Stump is Professor of English at Saint Louis University, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Spenser’s Heavenly Elizabeth
Book Subtitle: Providential History in The Faerie Queene
Authors: Donald Stump
Series Title: Queenship and Power
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27115-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27114-5Published: 18 November 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27117-6Published: 18 November 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-27115-2Published: 07 November 2019
Series ISSN: 2730-938X
Series E-ISSN: 2730-9398
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 337
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 4 illustrations in colour
Topics: History of Britain and Ireland, Early Modern/Renaissance Literature, Women's Studies, History of Early Modern Europe