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Femininity in Spenser's Amoretti
Matějková, Julie ; Znojemská, Helena (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
(ENG) This thesis focuses on Edmund Spenser's sonnet cycle the Amoretti with the aim of highlighting the manner in which its treatment of the Lady of the Sonnet (in this case inspired by Spenser's second wife Elizabeth Boyle) differs from the common tendencies exhibited by other Petrarchan sonneteers - specifically, that she is allowed to play a comparatively more active role in the cycle's narrative and engage the speaker more directly, that her personality and opinions are defined with greater clarity, and overall that she displays an atypical amount of independence, considering the genre she appears in. For the purposes of proving this point, two other works were selected for comparison: Canzoniere (also known as Rime sparse) by Francesco Petrarch, the so-called "Father of the Sonnet" whose poetry established numerous defining traits of the love sonnet tradition, and Delia by Samuel Daniel, whose cycle excellently illustrates the conventions eventually understood as "Petrarchan" in Elizabethan England (which originated from Petrarch's successors as often as from the man himself). Crucial claims this paper discusses are, firstly, that the Lady as Spenser portrays her does not defy her admirer primarily through her "heart of flint" and passive refusal of his advances (as was the standard...
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