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Chapter 1 - Flower Power

Political Discontents in Spenser’s Flowerbeds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2021

Heather James
Heather James
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
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Summary

This chapter argues that Edmund Spenser is at his most deeply political when he invites his readers to immerse themselves in the lush flowerbeds of his poetry. Immersive reading of the lavish and apparently “pointless” descriptions and inventories of flowers in The Shepheardes Calendar, Virgils Gnat, Muiopotmos, and the Garden of Adonis in The Faerie Queene reveal Spenser at his most resistant to submitting the poetic word to the ideological controls associated with the Crown and the court. Spenser plants his flowerbeds in the morally positive terrain of the liberty of speech and poetic license.

Keywords

SpenserComplaintspastoralflowersflowerbedsallusionverisimilitudereadinghumanismNarcissus
Type
Chapter
Information
Ovid and the Liberty of Speech in Shakespeare's England , pp. 20 - 54
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Flower Power
  • Heather James, University of Southern California
  • Book: Ovid and the Liberty of Speech in Shakespeare's England
  • Online publication: 18 June 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108767484.002
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  • Flower Power
  • Heather James, University of Southern California
  • Book: Ovid and the Liberty of Speech in Shakespeare's England
  • Online publication: 18 June 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108767484.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Flower Power
  • Heather James, University of Southern California
  • Book: Ovid and the Liberty of Speech in Shakespeare's England
  • Online publication: 18 June 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108767484.002
Available formats
×