Spenser and Jokes: The 2008 Kathleen Williams Lecture

Abstract

The role of humor in Spenser’s writing has often been underestimated. We know that he cracks jokes but we are not always alive to them, mainly because of his reputation as a sage and serious poet. However, we do know that Spenser read jest books, as his correspondence with Harvey reveals, notably Scoggin’s Jests and Merrie Tales of Skelton, the latter having a particular bearing on Spenser’s work given his adoption of Skelton’s poetic persona, Colin Clout. Spenser’s work is further indebted to the humor of humanist and classical writers—in particular, More, Erasmus, and their precursor, Lucian. This essay argues that a careful study of Spenser’s work from the Three Letters to The Faerie Queene reveals not simply works that contain numerous jokes but ones that adopt humor and wit as structural principles. From the joke contained in the opening line of The Faerie Queene, we can see that Spenser used jests, humor, and jokes to fashion himself as the major English poet of print culture.

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