Analyse Spenser’s colonial ideas about Ireland.
Analyse Spenser’s colonial ideas about Ireland.
Edmund Spenser, born in the early 1550’s in London, educated as a ‘sizar’ (poor scholar) at Cambridge University, aide to several prominent men including the Earl of Leicester moved to Ireland when he was appointed as Secretary to Lord Grey, Lord Deputy of Ireland, whose job it was to supress any more unrest. He settled in Cork on a 3000 acre estate a year after the Desmond Rebellion in Munster. He grew up in a Puritan environment and translated anti-Catholic propaganda as his first work (Abrams, 1993). His colonial views on Ireland are demonstrated firstly in The Faerie Queene Book 5, a multi layered fantastical poem full of historical allegory that deals with the issue of Justice. Secondly, we can read in prose format Spenser’s colonial views toward Ireland directly in A View of the Present State of Ireland where he proposes strategies on the colonisation of the island while pointing out why previous attempts had failed.
In his fifth book of The Faerie Queene the Queen gives her knight Arthegal the quest to rescue Eirena from the grasp of the evil Grantorto. Here we can take Arthegal as being Lord Grey sent over the sea sees that the church of Rome has taken root in Ireland poisoning the minds of the inhabitants. The priests have ‘sacred hunger’ and ‘ambitious minds’ with a desire to ‘reign’. These people don’t fear the ‘Dread of God’ or ‘Laws of Men’ that civilised lands contain. He infers that nothing seems to stop them in their wrong doing in Ireland where they hope ‘a Kingdom to obtain’. Spenser describes that Grantorto has oppressed other countries, France and Belgium. The rulers thereof became more occupied with ‘the Love of Lordship and of Lands’ and became ‘most faithless and unsound’. In these places ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ have been destroyed as the church has ‘burst out to all Outrageousness’i. Great Gloriane (Queen Elizabeth) is set on fighting this injustice that the church has inflicted
Edmund Spenser, born in the early 1550’s in London, educated as a ‘sizar’ (poor scholar) at Cambridge University, aide to several prominent men including the Earl of Leicester moved to Ireland when he was appointed as Secretary to Lord Grey, Lord Deputy of Ireland, whose job it was to supress any more unrest. He settled in Cork on a 3000 acre estate a year after the Desmond Rebellion in Munster. He grew up in a Puritan environment and translated anti-Catholic propaganda as his first work (Abrams, 1993). His colonial views on Ireland are demonstrated firstly in The Faerie Queene Book 5, a multi layered fantastical poem full of historical allegory that deals with the issue of Justice. Secondly, we can read in prose format Spenser’s colonial views toward Ireland directly in A View of the Present State of Ireland where he proposes strategies on the colonisation of the island while pointing out why previous attempts had failed.
In his fifth book of The Faerie Queene the Queen gives her knight Arthegal the quest to rescue Eirena from the grasp of the evil Grantorto. Here we can take Arthegal as being Lord Grey sent over the sea sees that the church of Rome has taken root in Ireland poisoning the minds of the inhabitants. The priests have ‘sacred hunger’ and ‘ambitious minds’ with a desire to ‘reign’. These people don’t fear the ‘Dread of God’ or ‘Laws of Men’ that civilised lands contain. He infers that nothing seems to stop them in their wrong doing in Ireland where they hope ‘a Kingdom to obtain’. Spenser describes that Grantorto has oppressed other countries, France and Belgium. The rulers thereof became more occupied with ‘the Love of Lordship and of Lands’ and became ‘most faithless and unsound’. In these places ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ have been destroyed as the church has ‘burst out to all Outrageousness’i. Great Gloriane (Queen Elizabeth) is set on fighting this injustice that the church has inflicted
Bibliography: Abrams, M. (1993). Norton Anthology of Literature 6th ed. Vol.1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Edwards, D. (1998). A View of the Present State of Ireland by Edmund Spenser. History Ireland Vol.6 No.3, 48-50. Spenser, E. (1596). The Fareie Queene Book 5 Canto 12. Retrieved November 7, 2013, from Internet Sacred Text Website: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/fq/fq64.htm Spenser, E. (1633). A View of the Present State of Ireland. Retrieved November 7, 2013, from Corpus of Electronic Texts: http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E500000-001/