ABSTRACT
Detective fiction names a 'hidden' criminal and discovers a criminal scheme according to the convention that connects grand criminality with the figure of the evil genius. Everyone working in the Renaissance knows that there has recently been an astonishing boom in Puttenham studies. Although no upward revaluation of Puttenham has explicitly been proclaimed, the use that has been made of him has lifted him from virtually nowhere into a position of amazing prominence. The irony is that even without the smoking gun it is so perfectly obvious that 'Puttenham' is a front for Spenser, the Arte either written by, or 'dictated' by him in his own interests rather than those of any poet-contemporaries. The Faerie Queenej would mean having moved from the characteristic Renaissance-Spenserian starting position of belatedness, exile and outsidedness to the very origin and center. On the contrary, the process or moment of discovery becomes peculiarly unsatisfying or subtly satisfying.
