progress of proper Christian love in marriage, the dem-
onstration of poetic virtuosity, and even the poet
Spenser’s means of achieving a distinction that would
make up for his less-than-noble birth.
The sequence has received much attention, both on
its own and in relation to Spenser’s poetic ambitions,
as well as in relation to the classical-poetic revival of
England in the latter part of the 16th century. His
exploration of Italianate poetic forms mirrored that of
Sidney, SIR WALTER RALEIGH, and others of his age who
sought to invest English literature with a loftier aes-
thetic. Thus, Amoretti compares with other sonnet
sequences—most of which were originally circulated
in manuscript, not published, form—in incorporating
courtly love conventions of the lover pursuing and
spurned by his beloved. He alternately praises and
chases her, and he valorizes her beauty, chastity, vir-
tue, and even, in several different sonnets, her “cruel
paine” (vanity), a convention of this sonnet form. Ear-
lier critics of Spenser’s work virtually dismissed it for
these conventionalities. It has also been variously inter-
preted as “merely autobiographical” in terms of the
actually passage of time, from just before Lent up to
the poet’s wedding day of June 11, 1594, and also as a
demonstration of Spenser’s expertise with the sonnet
form as well as his rising aesthetic and social status.
Some critics see the collection as a lyric gesture toward
the old aristocracy and a narrative one toward the
emerging nascent capitalism, or an acknowledgement
that Spenser’s rising star in Ireland presented an alter-
native center to the Elizabethan court in England.
Another recent interpretation sees the sequence as rep-
resentative of the poet’s own inability to reconcile his
desire to belong to the nobility with his dependence on
a new social and economic order for his education, his
wealth, and ultimately his social position.
In order for these more recent economic and social
analyses of Amoretti to take place, however, some basic
interpretation of the work had to be in place; this
includes such analysis as that of the conventions and
their violations, the time progression, the derivation
from Petrarchan forms, the allusions, and the illustra-
tions of the Cupid emblem. For example, while it is
clear there are autobiographical elements in the
work—it is addressed to Elizabeth Boyle, Spenser’s
second wife, references in some sonnets a time
sequence that corresponds to a period just before
Spenser and Boyle were married, and contains refer-
ences to his newly won Irish estate in Kilcolman, Mun-
ster—the poetic form is at least as signifi cant.
Although Amoretti follows the conventions of the
Elizabethan sonnet sequence—the fruitless pursuit of a
cold, cruel, superior beloved, etc.—each of these con-
ventions is undermined in some way. For example, in
Sonnet 15, in describing her superiority to precious
commodities such as rubies, pearls, and ivory, and the
merchants who seek them Spenser also derides the
merchants’ useless efforts, thereby lowering both the
value of his object of comparison and the goods to
which he compares her. While he pays lip service to
the “cruel fair” convention, Spenser also suggests a
confi dence in the ultimate success. For Spenser, the
pride that causes his beloved to scorn his advances is
also a mark of her distinction and individuality. More-
over, conventionally, and like WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
Spenser uses his sonnets to suggest the use of poetry to
counteract the mutability of life.
From conventional Elizabethan love lyric to repre-
sentation of the poet’s virtuosity to emblem of nascent
capitalism, it is clear that Amoretti rivals The Faerie
Queene as one of Spenser’s lasting accomplishments,
regardless of the obvious fact that Spenser himself used
the piece to, in a sense, market himself and his larger
work-in-progress.
See also ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN) SONNET.
FURTHER READING
Bernard, John D. “Spenserian Pastoral and the Amoretti.”
ELH 47, no. 3 (1980): 419–432.
Brown, Ted. “Metapoetry in Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti.”
PQ 82, no. 4 (2003): 401–417.
Dunlop, Alexander. “The Unity of Spenser’s Amoretti.” In
Silent Poetry: Essays in Numerological Analysis, edited by
Alastair Fowler, 153–169. London: Routledge, 1970.
Hadfi eld, Andrew, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Spenser.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Hamilton, A. C., ed. The Spenser Encyclopedia. Toronto: Uni-
versity of Toronto Press, 1990.
Heiatt, A. Kent. “A Numerical Key for Spenser’s ‘Amoretti’
and Guyon in the House of Mammon.” The Yearbook of
English Studies 5, no. 3 (1973): 14–27.
Johnson, William C. Spenser’s Amoretti: Analogies of Love.
Lewisburg, Ohio: Bucknell University Press, 1990.12 AMORETTI