Abstract
Matthew Lownes’s 1609 edition of The Faerie Queene claims that
the Mutabilitie Cantos, printed for the very first time, “appeare to be
parcell of some following Booke of the FAERIE QVEENE, VNDER THE LEGEND
OF Constancie.” This essay reads the figure of Meliboe, in book 5 of
Spenser’s poem, as a spokesperson for the constant, Neostoic world-view,
and his debate with Calidore as an exploration of what might be at
stake in the transition between courtesy and constancy. It looks at the
associations of constancy in late sixteenth-century culture. Finally, it
offers a reading of The Mutabilitie Cantos as attempting to
reconstitute the features of a constant virtue, in part through a
revision of Stoic and Nestoic discourses of property and possession.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 655-679 |
| Journal | English Literary History |
| Volume | 83 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 8 Sept 2016 |
Keywords
- Edmund Spenser
- Stoicism
- Inheritance
- The Faerie Queene
