Orderly Disorder: Rhetoric and Imitation in Spenser's Three Beast Poems from the Complaints Volume

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorJones, Amanda Rogersen
dc.contributor.committeechairRadcliffe, David H.en
dc.contributor.committeememberGraham, Peter W.en
dc.contributor.committeememberColaianne, Anthony J.en
dc.contributor.departmentEnglishen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T20:34:03Zen
dc.date.adate2001-05-04en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T20:34:03Zen
dc.date.issued2001-04-16en
dc.date.rdate2002-05-04en
dc.date.sdate2001-04-23en
dc.description.abstractSpenser's Complaints volume is a Menippean satire, a form characterized by mixture. Within this mixture of forms and voices, the three beast poems, Virgils Gnat, Prosopopoia or Mother Hubberds Tale, and Muiopotmos are unified by shared traditions in Classical Aesopic beast fable and medieval beast poetry. Reading these three poems as a set reveals Spenser's interpretation of the literary history of beast poetry as one of several competing forms of order. The beast poems show ordering schemes of hierarchy, proportion, imitative practice, and dialectic, yet none of these is dominant. Thus, in the overall Menippean mixture that makes up the volume, the beast poems present an additional and less obvious mixture: the kinds of order available to a literary artist. Spenser's Complaints volume was the object of some censorship, and scholars still debate whether he or his printer, William Ponsonby, designed the book. The many kinds of organization demonstrated by the beast poems coalesce to form a theory of contestatory imitation in which the dominant order is disorder itself, represented by the ruin brought about by time's passage. Spenser appropriates both satiric and serious voices in the beast poems. He reflects on his political ambition to achieve the status of poet laureate in a noble, courtly manner, but he snarls like a fox, too, when he considers the ruin of his ambition.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Artsen
dc.identifier.otheretd-04232001-164602en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-04232001-164602/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/31836en
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartthesis415doc.pdfen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectRhetoricen
dc.subjectBeast Fablesen
dc.subjectSpenseren
dc.subjectComplaintsen
dc.subjectMenippean Satireen
dc.titleOrderly Disorder: Rhetoric and Imitation in Spenser's Three Beast Poems from the Complaints Volumeen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineEnglishen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Artsen

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
thesis415doc.pdf
Size:
159.68 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Masters Theses