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Article: Chaucer's mutability in Spenser's Mutabilitie Cantos.(Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser)
- Article from:
- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
- Author:
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As John Dryden observed in 1700, "Spencer more than once insinuates, that the Soul of Chaucer was transfus'd into his Body; and that he was begotten by him Two hundred years after his Decease." (1) Following Spenser's lead, recent scholarship has increasingly focused attention on Spenser's continuity with Geoffrey Chaucer, whether in terms of Spenser's "[a]dversative [c]onstructions," his persona and sources of authority, his conception of eros, or his respect for female choice. (2) Despite this growing emphasis on Spenser's continuity with Chaucer, I would like to focus attention here on an important discontinuity between Spenser's Mutabilitie Cantos (1609) and Chaucer's ...