Prosopopoeia and Maternity in Edmund Spenser and Thomas Lodge

The trope of prosopopoeia has been the object of considerable scholarly interest at least since Paul de Man argued that this act of face-making, while it grants life to the lifeless and voice to the voiceless, strikes the wielder of the trope dead and dumb. In this analysis of two texts published in the 1590s and explicitly entitled with the word "prosopopoeia," the chiastic structure of the trope is examined in relation to the figure of maternity. In both Edmund Spenser's Prosopopoia. Or, Mother Hubberds Tale and Thomas Lodge's Prosopopoeia: containing the teares of the holy, blessed, and sanctified Marie, the Mother of God, prosopopoeia emerges as a masculine arrogation of the privilege of life-giving initially represented as a maternal prerogative.