Allegory, Space and the Material World in the Writings of Edmund Spenser (review)

Christopher Burlinson's Allegory, Space and the Material World in the Writings of Edmund Spenser contributes to the growing field sometimes called the "new materialism," sometimes the already aging "new new historicism," while also engaging the old "history of ideas" (though he might not call it that) associated with allegory. As Burlinson puts it, "This book as a whole looks at the intersection of historical and theoretical versions of space and materiality," asking "how Spenser shapes material into . . . both narrative spaces and accounts of physical space, as well as how the physical description in the poem reaches out to the world" (6–7). It is an ambitious book that insists upon cultural materialism's theoretical foundations — which some critics say have been diminished in a quest for "thinginess" that amounts to object fetishization. Burlinson's work not only argues for the inherent materiality of Spenser's allegory, it also looks to the outside world for the touch of the real, examining the materials, so to speak, with which Spenser fashioned his allegorical epic. This ambitiousness is both the strength and weakness of Burlinson's book, producing a somewhat uneven but always fascinating study.

Allegory, Space, and the Material World divides into four sections, the first of which, "Space and Materiality in the Realm of Allegorical Romance," weaves together a few broad topics: the main traditions of allegorical criticism, theories and practices of materialism, and the history of historicism itself. Arguing against those who view allegory as existing solely in the realm of thoughts rather than also in the realm of things, Burlinson looks to critics ranging from Walter Benjamin to Douglas Bruster for ways to theorize and historicize the object as it exists both "inside and outside" The Faerie Queene (22). Part 1 also examines spatial theory, building upon the work of theorists such as Henri Lefebvre to assert that the space of allegory is not purely mental or sentimental but also physical, material, ideological — as much produced by external forces as reflecting an interior, psychological world. By way of a segue into the rest of the book, Burlinson writes: "I have argued . . . with respect to space that using the 'real world' to make the meaning of the poem fall into place is tempting, and essential at some points, but misleading at others," adding that "the rest of this book will continue to explore this paradox" (43). If this method of moving between the real world and the world of epic works better in some chapters than in others, Burlinson's exploration of the boundaries between literary and historical materialism (as well as the paradoxes it produces) are, as a whole, illuminating.

Each section of the book compares analogous materials from inside and outside Spenser's epic, juxtaposing real and fictive spaces, from galleries and forests to hovels and royal chambers. Such a comparison works beautifully, for example, in the chapter entitled "The Stones of Kilcolman: Spenserian Biography, The Ruin, and the Material Fragment," in which Burlinson follows the reception of Spenser's ruined castle from the seventeenth century to the present; in the process, he provides fresh insights into the relation between Spenser's fascination with ruination and the material ruins that would come to represent his biography, especially the influence of Ireland on his life and work. Ireland figures centrally in Burlinson's work. In the section "Beleaguered Spaces," he compares the castles of The Faerie Queene with "the large scale of new fortifications in late sixteenth-century Ireland" (100); a chapter called "Defended Spaces" considers Spenser's Viewe of Ireland in relation to "contemporary discourse relating to military stra-tegy and Irish planter mentality," and, broadly, "the occupation of places and spaces" (128); another chapter, "Deforestation and the Spenserian Wood," rethinks the woods not as metaphor but as an actual location, specifically the forests of Ireland — though in...