The Oxford Handbook of Edmund Spenser

Author / Editor
McCabe, Richard A., ed.

Title
The Oxford Handbook of Edmund Spenser

Published
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Physical Description
xxiii, 826 pp.; 25 b&w illus.

Description
Covers a wide range of concerns in Spenser criticism, with forty-two individual essays arranged under five headings: Contexts, Works, Poetic Craft, Sources and Influence, and Reception. The handbook cites Chaucer and his works recurrently, with particular attention to Chaucerianism in Spenser's language and Spenser's emulation of his predecessor. In "Spenser's Language(s): Linguistic Theory and Poetic Diction" (pp. 367-84), Dorothy Stephens discusses Chaucer's linguistic influence. In "Spenser, Chaucer, and Medieval Romance" (pp. 553-72), Andrew King assesses how Spenser successfully bridges the "opposition" between English medieval romance and Chaucer's works. King focuses on TC, SqT, MerT, and the openendedness of CT.

Chaucer Subjects
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion
Knight and His Tale
Squire and His Tale
Merchant and His Tale
Canterbury Tales--General