Gain and Disdain: Patronal Obligations in the Works of Edmund Spenser
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Gain and Disdain: Patronal Obligations in the Works of Edmund Spenser Alzada Tipton1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This paper charts the development over the course of the works of Edmund Spenser about ideas about patronage, specifically the patron’s obligations to the poet. This survey shows that Spenser’s earlier works (published before the mid-1590s) value material gain as the primary reward of patronage, while the later works prioritize protection from enemies over material reward. This aligns well with the changes in Spenser’s circumstances. The works appearing in the mid-1590s onward were written at a time when Spenser expressed concerns about Lord Burghley’s hostility towards him and the peril that the Irish posed to his accumulated land and wealth in Ireland. Accordingly, the later works focus on the need for patron to protect the poet from hostile aristocrats and warlike savages. This survey upends widespread critical assumptions that material gain was the only patronal reward valued by early modern English poets. It also establishes protection, usually assumed to be a meaninglessly conventional request from poets, to be a substantial goal sought from patrons. Keywords Edmund Spenser · Faerie Queene · Shepheardes Calendar · Complaints · Colin Clouts Come Home Again · Patronage “Expecto patronum,” a phrase familiar to the readers of the works of J.K. Rowling, is an incantation designed to elicit a magical patronus, who protects the wizard from frightening wraiths. It is also a phrase that a reader of Edmund Spenser’s works might appreciate, given the focus in these works on patrons and their obligations to a poet beset by equally ominous beings. It must be noted, however, that critics have
* Alzada Tipton [email protected] 1
Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA
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never conjured up a full analysis of the protective role of the patron in Spenser’s works. Examining Spenser’s works for evidence regarding ideas about literary patronage has been a topic of enduring interest.1 However, a close examination of the changes over the course of Spenser’s career in his ideas about patronage is missing, especially the rewards of patronage. A scrutiny of Spenser’s oeuvre shows that his works—and the dedications that begin them—claim that patrons should provide two types of rewards: material compensation and protection against enemies. The quintessentially Spenserian words for these patronal obligations are “gain” and protection against “disdain.” Although Spenser’s works invoke both ideas, the early texts show more focus on gain. By 1596, however, protection from disdain (or malice) is pre-eminent; specifically, the patron should protect the poet from malicious aristocrats and uncivilized savages, both objects of concern for Spenser in the mid-1590s. Recognizing this shift challenges an often-unquestioned assumption that Spenser’s only motivation regarding patronage was material gain. Beyond just Spenser, a widespread critical definition of Elizab
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