A thorough and scholarly study of Spenser and Shakespeare and their contrary artistry, covering themes of theology, psychology, the depictions of passion and intellect, moral counsel, family hierarchy, self-love, temptation, folly, allegory, female heroism, the supernatural and much more.
Renaissance psychologies examines the distinct and polarised emphasis of these two towering intellects and writers of the early modern period. It demonstrates how pervasive was the influence of Spenser on Shakespeare, as in the ‘playful metamorphosis of Gloriana into Titania’ in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream and its return from Spenser’s moralizing allegory to the Ovidian spirit of Shakespeare’s comedy. It will appeal to students and lecturers in Spenser studies, Renaissance poetry and the wider fields of British literature, social and cultural history, ethics and theology.
Table of Content
Introduction
Part I: Anatomy of human nature
1. The charismatic queen and the centrality of self-love
2. Depicting passion
3. Depicting intellect (‘Experience, though noon auctoritee’)
4. Depicting soul and spirit: Spenser and Shakespeare
Part II: Holistic design
5. Hierarchic architecture in The Faerie Queene
6. Shakespeare’s plays as passional cycles: revealing the unconscious in chiastic symmetry
7. End-songs: final vistas of Spenser and Shakespeare
Epilogue
Index
About the author
Robert Lanier Reid is H. C. Stuart Professor Emeritus of English at Emory and Henry College
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