ABSTRACT
In Spenser’s poetry, time manifests itself in complex ways. It appears, as it commonly does in Renaissance literature, as an obsessive preoccupation, both pervasive and intricate, and may be analyzed from five perspectives: as conventional images; as conventional temporal sequences and measurements (eg, the calendar year, which provides the structural and thematic basis for SC); as the interplay of traditional topoi concerning time (eg, being linear and/or providential); as developed images, either lyrically or narratively extended, that express one or more temporal concepts; and, especially interesting, as narrative time, particularly in The Faerie Queene. conventional images These include general images of decay and human time-wasting, traditional motifs, and iconographical details associated with the personified figure of Time.
