Edmund Spenser's Irish Experience Wilde Fruit and Salvage Soyl [Hardcover]

Spenser's Irish Experienceis the first sustained critical work to argue that Edmund Spenser's perception and fragmented representation of Ireland shadows the whole narrative of his major work,The Faerie Queene. The poem has often been read in specifically English contexts but, as Hadfield argues, demands to be read in terms of England's expanding colonial hegemony within the British Isles and the ensuing fear that such national ambition would actually lead to the destruction of England's post-Reformation legacy. WhereA View of the Present State of Irelandattempts to provide a violent political solution to England's Irish problem,The Faerie Queeneexposes the apocalyptic fear that there may be no solution at all. The book contains an analysis of Spenser's life on the Munster plantation, readings of the political rhetoric and antiquarian discourse ofA View of the PresentState of Ireland, and three chapters which argue the case that the apparently Anglocentric allegory ofThe Faerie Queenereveals a land gradually--but clearly--transformed into its Irish Other.

Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Spenser, Colonialism, and National Identity
1. The Contexts of the 1590s
2. That they themselves had wrought: The Politics ofA View of the Present State of Ireland
3. Ripping up ancestries: The Use of Myth inA View
4. Reading the Allegory ofThe Faerie Queene
5. The Spoiling of Princes: Artegall thwarted, Calidore Confused
6. All shall changed be: Two Cantos of Mutabilitie and the Sense of an Endling
Appendix: Works Mentioning Ireland in the Title Entered into the Stationers' Register During Elizabeth's Reign
Select Bibliography
Index

Hadfield's well-researched analysis presents valuable insights into how Spenser's Irish experience influenceThe Faerie Queene. --Choice