Spenser's Monstrous Regiment: Elizabethan Ireland and the Poetics of Difference

by Richard A. McCabe

Spenser's Monstrous Regiment is a stimulating and scholarly account of how the experience of living and writing in Ireland qualified Spenser's attitude towards female "regiment" and challenged his notions of English nationhood. Including a trenchant discussion of the influence of colonialism upon the structure, themes, imagery, and language of Spenser's poetry, this is the first major study of Spenser's canon to engage with primary Gaelic materials in its assessment of his relationship with native Irish and Old English culture.

330 pages, Paperback

First published October 17, 2002