A Viewfrom the Bridge: Ireland and Violence in Spenser’sAmoretti

Abstract

The apparently extremist sonnets of Spenser’s Amoretti have often puzzled critics. Although the Petrarchan tradition provided some writ for violent allegations against the beloved, Spenser seems to expand this tendency beyond sonnet sequence decorum. A popular solution has been to read the violent poems as intentionally hyperbolic, but this view is insecure and does not explain why Spenser would want such an effect in an amatory and marital sequence. Instead, this paper argues that the violent sonnets should be read in the same Irish context of politics and conquest that has proved so illuminating for Spenser’s other works. Specifically, the essay argues for structural similarities between the war against the “unquiet thought” in Amoretti, and that against kerns and rebels in A View of the Present State of Ireland. An analysis of attitudes toward the slaughter of the yielded in both texts indicates that the extremist poet of Amoretti is unburdening himself of a long-held grudge.

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