Sixteenth-century dialogic discourse: an exploration of Protestant selfhood in the writings of Edmund Spenser and his contemporaries

This thesis examines the relationship between the work of the sixteenth-century poet Edmund Spenser and Protestant polemical writers of the 1580s. Previous scholarship has tended to prioritise Spenser’s indebtedness to classical epic and pastoral, underestimating the importance of classical dialogue as a source for his writings. Reading prose dialogues by George Gifford, Gervase Babington, and John Udall alongside Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender and The Faerie Queene Books I and II, this thesis reveals how the dialogue form was uniquely equipped to address spiritual tensions at the heart of late sixteenth-century Protestant culture. These issues relate especially to the assurance of faith, the problem of temptation, and the struggle to express one’s spirituality. The above writers used the dialogue form to explore Protestant interiority and self-scrutiny – and did so, paradoxically, by opening this selfscrutiny up to their readers. Classical dialogue transforms in the late sixteenth century into a form able to engage meaningfully in spiritual debates, blurring distinctions between public and private selfhood, fiction and non-fiction, pedagogy and open debate. This thesis therefore illuminates a relatively neglected strand of Spenser’s historical and cultural context, but also suggests more generally the centrality of religious dialogue to early modern English culture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Buttery, Jill

Contributors dc:contributor

• Craik, Katharine

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/dqzy-ad39

OAI identifier oai:identifier

tle:1522b7e5-0b75-4c17-af85-19aac5e53716:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1