This book provides a radical reading of Edmund Spenser and argues for a re-orientation in Renaissance criticism. It begins by critiquing the new historicist hegemony in Spenser studies, and, through a series of detailed readings, proposes alternative strategies for interpreting the texts of this pivotal Renaissance author which include a politicised 'new aestheticism', eco-criticism, and pastoral theory. Unlike most non-new historicist studies, Radical Spenser argues that Spenser's texts demand a reading at once political and sensitive to aesthetic surprise.
Following a polemical...