Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Antiquities of Britain: Spenser's Ruines of Time

Antiquities of Britain: Spenser's Ruines of Time Antiquities of Britain: Spenser’s Ruines of Time by Hassan Melehy N The Ruines of Time, the poem that opens his Complaints (1591), Spenser offers reflections on the evanescent nature of all worldly I things, death, and the creation of new life that may be found in poetry. Indeed, The Ruines of Time presents a poetics that Spenser de- velops and follows throughout the Complaints, and no less than a mani- festo for a renewed English poetry, founded on the ruins of the past, a new life springing forth on the funeral monuments of the dead. In this respect, Spenser engages in a productive imitation of one of his major French predecessors, Joachim du Bellay, whose sonnet sequences the Antiquitez de Rome and Songe (published together in 1558) he presents as translations toward the end of the Complaints under the respective titles Ruines of Rome: by Bellay and Visions of Bellay. As I will show here, The Ruines of Time is marked by frequent allusion to and reworking of these sequences. And in a broader perspective, Spenser borrows notions of imitation from Du Bellay’s Deffence et Illustration de la Langue Francoyse (1549), a text with which he was likely familiar http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Studies in Philology University of North Carolina Press

Antiquities of Britain: Spenser's Ruines of Time

Studies in Philology , Volume 102 (2) – Apr 4, 2005

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/antiquities-of-britain-spenser-apos-s-ruines-of-time-t2ej9LNgJH

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1543-0383

Abstract

Antiquities of Britain: Spenser’s Ruines of Time by Hassan Melehy N The Ruines of Time, the poem that opens his Complaints (1591), Spenser offers reflections on the evanescent nature of all worldly I things, death, and the creation of new life that may be found in poetry. Indeed, The Ruines of Time presents a poetics that Spenser de- velops and follows throughout the Complaints, and no less than a mani- festo for a renewed English poetry, founded on the ruins of the past, a new life springing forth on the funeral monuments of the dead. In this respect, Spenser engages in a productive imitation of one of his major French predecessors, Joachim du Bellay, whose sonnet sequences the Antiquitez de Rome and Songe (published together in 1558) he presents as translations toward the end of the Complaints under the respective titles Ruines of Rome: by Bellay and Visions of Bellay. As I will show here, The Ruines of Time is marked by frequent allusion to and reworking of these sequences. And in a broader perspective, Spenser borrows notions of imitation from Du Bellay’s Deffence et Illustration de la Langue Francoyse (1549), a text with which he was likely familiar

Journal

Studies in PhilologyUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Apr 4, 2005

There are no references for this article.