Brown, Richard Danson

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Open Research OnlineThe Open University’s repository of research publicationsand other research outputsBook review: Andrew Zurcher, Spenser’s LegalLanguage: Law and Poetry in Early Modern EnglandJournal ItemHow to cite:Brown, Richard Danson (2009). Book review: Andrew Zurcher, Spenser’s Legal Language: Law and Poetry inEarly Modern England. The Modern Language Review, 104(2) pp. 546–548.For guidance on citations see FAQs.c© 2009 The Modern Language ReviewVersion: Not SetCopyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyrightowners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policiespage.oro.open.ac.ukMLR, ., Spenser’s Legal Language: Law and Poetry in Early Modern England. By A RZ. Cambridge: Brewer. . xi+ pp. £. ISBN ––––.e Faerie Queene makes even casual readers conscious of its legal vocabulary.When, in Book , Cupid brings the professional heartbreaker Mirabella to book,Spenser’s idiom becomes increasingly technical:All which when Cupid heard, he by and byIn great displeasure, wild a CapiasShould issue forth, t’attach that scornefull lasse.(. . . –)Hamilton provides a terse paraphrase: ‘He issued a warrant of arrest (Capias: ‘thoumayst take’) to require her appearance at court’ (Spenser, e Faerie Queene, ed.by A. C. Hamilton, rev. nd edn (Harlow: Longman, ), p. ). Yet as AndrewZurcher’s subtle and provocative study indicates, in using terms such as ‘Capias’Spenser was doing more than recycling a technical argot. In this view, legal dictionand the semantic repercussions of that diction are central not only to Spenser’spoetry, but to the ‘oppositional’ work of contemporaries such as the Shakespeare ofthe Sonnets, and the Donne of Songs and Sonets (pp. –).e pervasive legaleseof the Mirabella episode identiﬁes her as a misuser of prerogative; Zurcher reads it asa satirical comment on Elizabeth’s exercise of power, especially in relation to Ireland:‘atMirabella receives her comeuppance fromCupid’s legal system could only havebeen a calculated attempt on Spenser’s part to remind Elizabeth of her own legalconstraints’ (p. ). e ‘Glossary of Selected Legal Diction in e Faerie Queene’comprehensively supplements Hamilton—a capias is a writ ‘issued to a sheriﬀ [. . .]authorizing him to arrest or seize the person named in the writ; esp. capias ad respon-dendum, a writ issued to enforce the named person’s attendance at court’ (p. ).As this example indicates, Zurcher adroitly considers the interplay between dic-tion and literary politics. e opening chapters oﬀset a complex sense of the aes-thetic value of Spenser’s poem with an intentionalist approach to contemporaneoushermeneutics. e ‘Letter to Ralegh’ is connected with the ‘sensus germanus’ ofRenaissance lawyers: ‘e sensus germanus, or ‘the Authors whole intention of thiswork’, lies vanishingly within the act of analysis itself, and as readers of the poemwe are given the responsibility to confront every word, every narrative episode andvisual-verbal icon [. . .] with the single most important analytical tool oﬀered bythe humanists and lawyers alike: a faith in [. . .] the existence of this recoverableintention’ (p. ). Yet as Zurcher concedes, a faith in such an intention does notnecessarily assuage the feelings of ‘desperation’ a reader of e Faerie Queene maylegitimately feel in trying to make sense of the poem locally or universally (p. ).Judging Spenser’s intentions on the basis of the ‘Letter to Ralegh’ remains con-tentious, given its well-rehearsed problems and the fact that e Faerie Queene wasnever ﬁnished according to the Letter’s plan. Zurcher’s tendency is to stress thecoherence of Spenser’s legal and political thinking (p. ), yet the unﬁnished stateof the text undermines any watertight sense of coherence.Created on 28 November 2008 at 7.53 hours MLR 104. 2 (APRIL) 2009ReviewsNevertheless, this rewarding study is essential reading for Spensersians and anyoneconcerned with the intersections between law, politics, and poetry. In the majoranalytical chapters on Books – Zurcher shows a de appreciation of the waysin which Spenser’s diction inﬂects the poem’s allegorical representations of Irishcontexts. is is a book, moreover, which is anxious to debate the still problematicrelationship between literary pleasure, instrumentalism, and political reading (pp. ,–). In this light, it is a shame that the reappraisal of critical priorities inherentin a study of poetic diction did not consider the ways in which another unfashionableterm—tone—modiﬁes and adapts meaning. Consider again that ‘Capias’. oughZurcher’s political reading is plausible, my suspicion remains that by rhyming hislegalese with the ﬂippantly derogatory ‘lasse’, Spenser deﬂates the potential politicaloﬀence of the episode by emphasizing the story’s comedic elements. Diction neverexists in isolation, and it would have been a foolhardy poet who would have unequi-vocally described Elizabeth as a ‘scornefull lasse’, however oppositional his impulses.T O U R D BBelow you should ﬁnd the contact details (postal and email addresses) that are on ﬁle. Ifthe information is not there, please write it in if you are sending the proof back to theeditor, or else email it to the assistant editor John Waś (john.was@ntlworld.com). edetails should be correct and valid for April , since they will be used to generate theaddress labels for oﬀprints. (Note. Occasionally an item may have to be postponed to alater issue if the volume in preparation proves to be over-long: please advise of any changeof contact details up till the actual publication of your contribution.)Prof. Richard Danson BrownEnglish DepartmentFaculty of ArtsOpen UniversityWalton HallMilton KeynesMK7 6AAemail address: R.D.Brown@open.ac.ukCreated on 28 November 2008 at 7.53 hours MLR 104. 2 (APRIL) 2009

Book review: Andrew Zurcher, Spenser's Legal Language: Law and Poetry in Early Modern England

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