Spenser's Monstrous Regiment

Elizabethan Ireland and the Poetics of Difference

Richard A. McCabe

Uses contemporary Gaelic literature, and Bardic poetry in particular, to contextualise Spenser's polemical account of Irish society
The first major examination of Spenser's secretarial letters to illustrate his relation with Lord Grey and the political motivations that lie behind the poetics of heroism designed to rehabilitate Grey's reputation
The first major discussion of how the Irish colonial experience led to Spenser's disenchantment with female regiment and distorted the form of The Faerie Queene

Spenser's Monstrous Regiment

Elizabethan Ireland and the Poetics of Difference

Richard A. McCabe

Description

Spenser's Monstrous Regiment is a stimulating and scholarly account of how the experience of living and writing in Ireland qualified Spenser's attitude towards female "regiment" and challenged his notions of English nationhood. Including a trenchant discussion of the influence of colonialism upon the structure, themes, imagery, and language of Spenser's poetry, this is the first major study of Spenser's canon to engage with primary Gaelic materials in its assessment of his relationship with native Irish and Old English culture.

Spenser's Monstrous Regiment

Elizabethan Ireland and the Poetics of Difference

Richard A. McCabe

List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Preface: Beyond the Pale
I. The Imperial Theme
1. Arms and the Woman
2. Spenser and the Rival Poets
II. 'Salvagesse sans finesse'
3. 'Salvage Nation'
4. 'Salvage Knight'
III. The Faerie Queene (1590)
5. St George for Ireland
6. Sins of Difference
7. Noble Britons, Savage Scyths
IV. Dialogues of Displacement
8. Colin Clout's Other Island
9. Irenius's Mother Tongue
V. The Faerie Queene (1596)
10. 'Friendships Faultie Guile'
11. Poetic Justice
12. Savage Courtesy
VI. Spenser's Ireland 1609-50
13. Diana's Spite
14. The Response to A View
Notes
List of Primary Sources
Index

Spenser's Monstrous Regiment

Elizabethan Ireland and the Poetics of Difference

Richard A. McCabe

Reviews and Awards

"Two distinctive strengths make this book especially original. First, McCabe's knowledge of Irish language and literature provides a richer context, compensating for the 'rigidly anglophone' limitations of recent scholarship. Second, McCabe challenges prevailing assumptions about art's relationship to ideology.... McCabe's informed account of Irish poetry makes Spenser's struggle against its attractions more urgent and acute.... McCabe concludes this fascinating book by showing how another Spenser shared the fate of those he sought to dispossess."--Renaissance Quarterly

"An important addition to the widespread recent reconsideration of the significance of Spenser's Irish experience to his nationalist poetry.... This book offers a major reorientation of the conversation on the meanings of Spenser's Irish experience; the yield in fresh contexts and vigorous interpretations is great."--Studies in English Literature 1500-1900