ABSTRACT
Critical readings of The Faerie Queene frequently depoliticise the poem, or treat its historical context – the author’s involvement in the Munster Plantation – as irrelevant or an embarrassment. Anne Fogarty’s interpretation of Book VI assumes that the text has been materially influenced by Spenser’s support of the concerted New English attempt to colonise Ireland. Hence the essay treats the central images and themes of the book not simply as idealised abstractions but as metaphorical reflections of the complex, contradictory, and insidious motives of colonisation. The aim is not to posit simple parallelisms between the text and the author’s world but to explore the multifarious ways in which the poem mediates, refracts, and even apparently subverts Spenser’s political beliefs. Thus, although Fogarty argues that Book VI is a continuation of the poem’s overall attempt to construct a colonialist aesthetics by drawing up lines of demarcation between forms of wildness and civility or ‘courtesie’, it also draws attention to contradictions and moments of breakdown in the narrative which threaten its coherence. While Spenser’s political writings on Ireland may have allowed little room for doubt or for counter-currents of sympathy with the ‘wild’ Irish, his epic poem explores the political unconscious and the jarring ambiguities of the colonial ideals which he propounds and supports. The sprezzatura of Spenser’s poetic creation leads to uncomfortable revelations of savagery, such as, for example, the voyeuristic description of Serena’s depredation by the cannibals, which undermines the assured vision of the civilising influence of the followers of ‘courtesie’ which Book VI also unfolds. This essay was awarded the Isabel MacCaffrey Award from The Spenser Society of America.
