Edmund Spenser's censored attacks on Lord Burghley (Elizabeth I's powerful first minister) serve as the basis for a reassessment of the poet's mid-career, challenging the dates of canonical texts, the social and personal contexts for scandalous topical allegories, and the new historicist portrait of Spenser's 'worship' of power and state ideology.

Edmund Spenser''s censored attacks on Lord Burghley (Elizabeth I''s powerful first minister) serve as the basis for a reassessment of the poet''s mid-career, challenging the dates of canonical texts, the social and personal contexts for scandalous topical allegories, and the new historicist portrait of Spenser''s ''worship'' of power and state ideology.

Edmund Spenser's censored attacks on Lord Burghley (Elizabeth I's powerful first minister) serve as the basis for a reassessment of the poet's mid-career, challenging the dates of canonical texts, the social and personal contexts for scandalous topical allegories, and the new historicist portrait of Spenser's 'worship' of power and state ideology.

Edmund Spenser''s censored attacks on Lord Burghley (Elizabeth I''s powerful first minister) serve as the basis for a reassessment of the poet''s mid-career, challenging the dates of canonical texts, the social and personal contexts for scandalous topical allegories, and the new historicist portrait of Spenser''s ''worship'' of power and state ideology.