1932/03/01 by John William Draper · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Historical Legal Studies and Society #German Literature and Culture Studies #Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies #Hesiod #Literature #Canto #Philosophy #Epithet #Mythology #Order (exchange) #Art #Poetry #History #Classics
paper · doi:10.2307/458021
openalex publication_date 1932/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The Faerie Queene is packed with classical allusions and classical proper names, especially Canto xi of Book iv , with its lists of sea-gods and founders of kingdoms and the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris. Here in particular, Spenser concentrated his mythological learning both in quantity and in obscure erudition; and he seems to have had at his elbow such compilations as Hesiod's Theogony , the Library of Apollodorus, and the Libri Mythologiæ of Natalis Comes. His use of the Theogony in his list of nereids illustrates how closely in this matter he followed his authorities: all but two of the fifty are derived from Hesiod; he followed even Heriod's order as closely as his stanza-form allowed; and a number of the descriptive epithets are similar. Two of Spenser's names, however, have no counterpart in Hesiod, Phao and Poris; nor do they appear in similar lists of nereids in Homer or Apollodorus or other classical sources, nor in Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum Gentilium nor in Natalis Comes.