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Chapter 1 Introduction: Playfulness in the Amoretti CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: PLAYFULNESS IN THE AMORETTI A Survey of Criticism Regarded as “one of the four founding fathers of modern English literature, along with Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton” (Hadfield 1), Edmund Spenser has enjoyed a good deal of scholarly interest over the years and “there is no English poet of the period on whom more extended comment would be available” (Cummings blurb). However, the present state of scholarship indicates that Spenser’s sonnet sequence, Amoretti, has not attracted an enthusiastic following. Since its first appearance in 1595, the sequence has been branded as inferior to the sonnet sequences produced by Shakespeare, Sidney, Daniel and Drayton, the other great sonneteers of the Elizabethan era, and Spenser’s reputation as “the most important non-dramatic English Renaissance poet” (Hadfield [i]) has in the past rested largely on his achievement in The Faerie Queene. The Critical Heritage volume on Spenser, which includes a comprehensive collection of Spenser criticism until 1715, has only three references to the Amoretti. In his Conversations with Ben Jonson, William Drummond of Hawthornden described the Amoretti as childish and expressed his belief that they were not written by Spenser at all. As to that which Spenser calleth his Amoretti [sic], I am not of their opinion, who think them his; for they are so childish, that it were not well to give them so honourable a father. (Cummings 140) John Hughes, “the first critic to consider the sum of Spenser’s work and not merely fragments of it” (Mueller 1), devotes a few sentences to the Amoretti in his introduction to the 1715 edition of Spenser’s Works, entitled “An Essay in Allegorical Poetry”. He commences by pointing out that the sonnet was by then “a Species of Poetry so entirely disus’d, that it seems to be scarce known amongst us at this time”, but nonetheless acknowledges that most of Spenser’s sonnets have qualities of “natural Tenderness, Simplicity and Correctness” (Cummings 276). The impact of this compliment, however, is somewhat negated by the fact that he uses Sonnet 15 of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella to illustrate those qualities that he admires in the Amoretti. 1 The lack of critical commentary during this early period is further emphasized by Jewel Wurtsbaugh’s Two Centuries of Spenserian Scholarship: 1609–1805, which does not include any critical commentary on the sonnet sequence. The only references to the sonnets concern publication dates or matters of autobiographical interest. What most of the critics of the time seemed to agree upon, was that “the course of the poet’s successful love and marriage [could be] traced in the Amoretti and Epithalamion” (111). Critical commentary continued to be mainly confined to incidental remarks in discussion of Spenser’s work as a whole during the nineteenth century. The few comments that were made about the sequence tended to be negative, as critics such as J. R. Lowell complained about Spenser’s “somewhat artificial Amoretti” (31). R. W. Church, who conceded that the sonnets had “grace and sweetness”, expressed the view of many other critics of the time when he condemned the Amoretti for lacking “the power and fire, as well as the mystery of those of the greater masters” (168). A new collection of Elizabethan sonnet sequences, edited by Sidney Lee and published in two volumes, made its appearance at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although not entirely dismissive of the Amoretti, Lee considered the sequence largely unimaginative and imitative in its use of image and convention, and felt that most of the sonnets exemplified “the fashionable vein of artifice” (II: xciii–iv). Lee’s rather negative view of the Amoretti was upheld by a number of critics during the first half of the century. In his article entitled “An Apology for Spenser’s Amoretti”, Waldo McNeir cites Emile Legouis’ opinion that Spenser’s sonnets lack “la brusquerie dramatique et la flamme” of Sidney’s. He also quotes William L. Renwick’s conclusion that Spenser “never wrote an outstanding sonnet to rank with Drayton’s masterpiece or Sidney’s best”, and that he was without “Shakespeare’s compression and magical phrasing, Ronsard’s solidity and Petrarch’s subtlety”. Renwick then softens his criticism by conceding that Spenser “kept a better level than most, and if he never wrote a great sonnet, he never wrote a bad one” (525). J. W. Lever, one of the most influential of the critics of Spenser’s Amoretti during the 1950s, was particularly harsh in his condemnation of the sonnets. Whilst he acknowledged the beauty and delicacy of the sonnets, he found Spenser’s “imagery diction, and verse form distinctive but not admirable, and the Amoretti as a whole undramatic” (McNeir 525). In his own words, 2 the imagery [had] lost the complex values of personification and conceit; the scope of metaphor was restricted; and similes, though sometimes of remarkable beauty, forfeited a wide range of sensual appeal. Finally we may add the archaisms of diction and the merely decorative or sonorous effects of verse form. (136–37) In addition, he pointed to “disproportion” in events before and after the courtship, and the “indecisiveness of the ending”. Lever was also of the opinion that the sequence was “structurally defective” and that eighteen of the sonnets should be eliminated and others rearranged in order to avoid what he termed “irreconcilable inconsistencies in the presentation of the heroine” (92–138). Even C. S. Lewis, an ardent admirer of The Faerie Queene, had only qualified praise for the Amoretti. Describing his style as “devout, quiet and harmonious”, he concluded that “Spenser was not one of the great sonneteers” (372). During the 1960s, critical commentary on Spenser’s work was characterized by a range of approaches including “the rhetorical, the allegorical, the numerological, the iconographic, and the archetypal (or mythological)” (Berger 1). As in the past, most critical analysis during this period concentrated on The Faerie Queene, but some favourable attention was also paid to the minor poems. The publication of Louis Martz’s “The Amoretti: ‘Most Goodly Temperature’” signalled a turning point in the direction of criticism of the Amoretti. In his article, Martz challenged some of Lever’s assertions regarding inconsistencies in the characterization of the lady, and stressed the importance of parody, wit and humour as part of the tone of the sequence. Despite his rather tentative use of the terms—“good humoured, yes, even humorous, in our sense of the word” (154), “close to mock heroic” (156); it would be too much to call it parody” (157)—he drew attention to and initiated interest in these previously unexplored aspects of the Amoretti. Since the 1960s, the scope of criticism with regard to the Amoretti has broadened considerably. One of the preoccupations of more recent times is the search for an explanation of the Amoretti in terms of its different structures and critics such as Alexander Dunlop and Alistair Fowler have discovered various kinds of numerological and 3 calendrical patterning in the sequence. Reaction against autobiographical criticism, as well as the revival of interest in the allegorical aspects of The Faerie Queene has led to studies of the Amoretti as a sequence suited to allegorical interpretation. One such critic is Robert Kellogg, who asserts that the “fictional poet-lover-worshipper’s actual experience is close to ideal experience: The technique of the Amoretti with their wealth of Petrarchan conceits, is in many ways analogous to that of The Faerie Queene, a continued allegory or dark conceit” (145). Whilst idealising is not allegorizing, there is the possibility that the states represented in Amoretti are somehow paradigmatic of perfectible Petrarchan love. The relation of ideas in Spenser’s poetry to Neo–Platonic thought has been the subject of much commentary. To a large extent, this commentary has tended to be focused on questions relating to the extent of Neo-Platonic influence and the origin of Neo-Platonic ideas within the poetry, rather than on the ways in which Spenser treats Neo-Platonic themes. Robert Ellrodt, who expressed reservations about the degree of Platonic influence which had been claimed for some of Spenser’s poetry, argued that while the Amoretti “offered the first instance of the poet’s aquaintance with the Platonic ladder, the steps could not be traced” (212), and suggested that the Amoretti be placed somewhere between “the soft haze of Platonism in The Faerie Queene” and “the hard glare of the Neo–Platonic theory of love in the hymnes” (40). The imagery in Spenser’s Amoretti has been dealt with rather intermittently. In the few instances where comment has been made, this has tended to be negative. However, Myron Turner’s more recent article entitled “The Imagery of Spenser’s Amoretti” presents a more positive view. Turner, who claims that “love for Spenser is a mode of self- realization” which necessitates inward change, discusses the imagery in the sonnets in relation to what he perceives as the poet/lover’s “desire for the mutually fulfilling and reciprocal self-transcendence which exists within and makes possible the love relationship”. According to Turner, it is both the need for, and the fear of change, which become “important sources of imagery and poetic energy” in the Amoretti (286). During the 1980s, critics turned their attention to politics and sexuality. In his book entitled Edmund Spenser: A Literary Life, Gary Waller examines Spenser’s career in terms of both the material conditions of his poetry’s production (race, gender, class) and the places of its production (court, church, nation). Waller, who sees the Amoretti as providing a critique of Petrarchan love poetry, describes it as “atypically moralistic, espousing a view 4 of the relationship between poet/lover and his beloved that unambiguously advocates a Christian hierarchy of male control and female subordination” (170).
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