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Article: Spenser's filthy matter.(sexuality in Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene")
- Article from:
- The Explicator
- Article date:
- June 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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To the first readers of Spenser's Faerie Queene, the extent to which both the Bower of Bliss and its ruler Acrasia were modeled on Armida and her palace in Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata would have been obvious. Although twentieth-century scholars have pointed out the ways in which Spenser changes Gerusalemme Liberata for his own purposes, the description of Acrasia's breasts in stanza 78 has escaped scrutiny thus far. Spenser writes
Her snowy brest was bare to readie spoyle
Of hungry eies, which n'ote therewith be fild.
And yet through languour of her late sweet toyle.
Few drops, more cleare then Nectar, forth distild.
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