Spenser And Ovid

Scholars have long known that English poet Edmund Spenser (1552-99) draw as much from Ovid as from Virgil, but have tended to consider the former central and the latter incidental, recently due to the interpretation of Spensor as a spokesman for Elizabethan imperialism. Pugh (U. of Leeds) disagrees, and reads as systemic the allusions to and imitation of Ovid across Spenser's career, which have previously been kept fragmentary and contained. He finds that the English poet sometimes used Virgil's affirmation of public-minded values and imperialist politics as a veil to deflect the censor from his political heterodoxy, pointing out that Ovid used Virgil in exactly the same way. Annotation 穢2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)