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The Petrarchan Context of Spenser's Amoretti

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Reed Way Dasenbrock
Reed Way Dasenbrock*
Affiliation:
New Mexico State University Las Cruces
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Abstract

Spenser's Amoretti have never been properly appreciated, because they have been judged by the norms they have sought to criticize, the norms of Renaissance Petrarchism. A critique of Petrarchan love, the Amoretti turn away from that system's restless egotism toward the world of marriage, which Spenser presents as a sacred harbor of rest. This is not an absolutely original turn, since Petrarch himself, founder of the conventions of Petrarchan love, also sought to escape his own love situation. He does so, in the Canzoniere, by turning toward Heaven and by turning Laura into an agent of transcendence, like Dante's Beatrice. The turn the Amoretti make is parallel to the turn made by the Canzoniere, though in Spenser marriage replaces death as the means of obtaining sacred rest. Spenser's exaltation of marriage is indebted to Protestant teaching, though the Amoretti is where this new conception of marriage first enters love poetry.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 100 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 38 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1985

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