Spenser's sporting muse : The playful use of imagery in relation to the metamorphsis of the lover in Spenser's Amoretti.
Date
2008-10-03T07:21:43Z
Authors
Wirth, Amanda
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Abstract
This dissertation is a literary-historical study of Edmund Spenser’s under-rated sonnet
sequence, Amoretti (1595), focusing on the poet’s playful manipulation of
conventional imagery (largely Petrarchan) to reflect the progression of the
poet/lover’s relationship with his beloved from the solipsistic to the interpersonal: that
is, a relationship represented by variations on fixed erotic configurations to fluid,
interactive conversations involving attitudes, understanding and emotion. Without
denying the ultimately serious purpose of the sonnets, the study concentrates on the
light-heartedness of the presentation, advertised as a “sporting” interlude in the midst
of the composition of Spenser’s major work, The Faerie Queene. Not primarily
ideological in focus, but rather of a critical evaluative kind, the work entails a
systematic and comprehensive analysis of imagery concerning weaving, captivity and
eyes within the Amoretti in three contexts: the genre of the Elizabethan sonnet
sequence, Spenser’s other works and the Renaissance propensity for experiment or
play of mind.
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Keywords
Edmund Spenser, Amoretti, sonnet, petrarchism, playfulness