The Disingenuous Poet Laureate: Spenser's Adoption of Chaucer

Author / Editor
Esolen, Anthony M.

Title
The Disingenuous Poet Laureate: Spenser's Adoption of Chaucer

Published
Studies in Philology 87 (1990): 285-311.

Description
Spenser imitated Chaucer's bumbling narrative stance and tone and employed Chaucerian allusions to feign a humility that dismarmed criticism and enabled him to undercut the Tudor myth. Further, he expected his reader to understand the pretense. Book 1 of "The Faerie Queene" echoes Th, PF, and KnT, as well as Virgil, in order to subvert the imperial epic.

Chaucer Subjects
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.