Venus and Adonis (Vol. 33) | Ellen Aprili Harwood (essay date 1977)
Ellen Aprili Harwood (essay date 1977)
SOURCE: "Venus and Adonis: Shakespeare's Critique of Spenser," in The Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries, Vol. XXXIX, No. 1, June, 1977, pp. 44-60.
[In this essay, Harwood argues that Venus and Adonis represents Shakespeare's critical evaluation of the Garden of Adonis and its erotic philosophy as well as Edmund Spenser's Ovidianism as depicted in Spencer's The Faerie Queene.]
In writing Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare could not have ignored or been ignorant of The Faerie Queene. When Shakespeare published Venus and Adonis in 1593, The Shepheardes Calender (1581) had long since brought Spenser acclaim and renown; Sir Philip Sidney, for example, had singled it out for praise in The Defense of Poetry. In 1590, the first part of The Faerie Queene appeared and was enthusiastically received. Other writers—Nashe, Harrington, Daniel, Drayton,...
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