This book provides an authoritative guide to debate on Elizabethan England's poet laureate. It covers key topics and provides histories for all of the primary texts. Some of today's most prominent Spenser scholars offer accounts of debates on the poet, from the Renaissance to the present day. Essential for those producing new research on Spenser.

ELIZABETH J. BELLAMY Professor of English, University of New Hampshire, USAPATRICK CHENEY Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Penn State University, USAANDREW HADFIELD Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Early Modern Studies, University of Sussex, UKJOHN N. KING Distinguished Professor, Ohio State University, USATHERESA M. KRIER Professor of English Literature at Macalester College, USARAPHAEL LYNE Fellow of New Hall and Lecturer in the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UKRICHARD A. MCCABE Fellow of Merton College and Professor of English Language and Literature, Oxford University, UKWILLY MALEY Professor of Renaissance Studies, University of Glasgow, UKDAVID LEE MILLER Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of South Carolina, USAANNE LAKE PRESCOTT Helen Altschul Goodheart Professor of English, Barnard College, Columbia University, USAANDREW ZURCHER Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, UK

A Note on Quotation Notes on the Contributors Brief Chronology of Spenser's Life Introduction; B.van Es Life; P.Cheney Politics; A.Hadfield Religion; J.N.King Gender; E.J.Bellamy Sources; A.L.Prescott Works Published before 1589; B.van Es The Faerie Queene (1590); D.L.Miller Shorter Verse Published 1590-5; R.A.McCabe The Faerie Queene (1596); T.M.Krier A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596; 1633); W.Maley Shorter Verse After 1595; R.Lyne Texts and Resources; A.Zurcher Works Cited Index