Spenser's Narrative Figuration of Women in The Faerie Queene

Judith H. Anderson is Chancellor's Professor Emeritus at Indiana University. She is the author of six studies and coeditor of a further five volumes, including, most recently, Shakespeare and Donne: Generic Hybrids and the Cultural Imaginary (2013) and Light and Death: Figuration in Spenser, Kepler, Donne, Milton (2017).

"I've rarely read a critical work on Spenser that offers more page-by-page illumination of the text it treats. The interpretation is supported by a magisterial command of the scholarship, and of the theoretical work that has enabled us to understand what 'character' can mean to Spenser and other Renaissance writers. It's simply the best treatment I've seen of women in The Faerie Queene." William A. Oram, Smith College "Once again, Judith Anderson proves herself to be one of the supplest readers of allegory among us. It is not chiefly for its local insights, though they are luminous, that I treasure this book: it is for its poised and subtle lessons in method. 'Figuration' in these pages captures the very essence of Spenserian technique: its affective, philosophical, and representational mobility." Linda Gregerson, University of Michigan

• Introduction: Spenser's Narrative Figuration of Women1. Parody and Perfection: Spenser's Una2. Belphoebe's "mirrours more then one": History's Interlude3. Britomart: Inside and Outside the Armor4. Phantasies, Pains, and Punishments: A Still-Moving CodaNotesIndex