Dressed in Sheep’s Clothing: Pastoral and Reform in Spenser’s A View of the Present State of Ireland

Abstract

This study investigates the presence of pastoral themes in Spenser’s prose dialogue, A View of the Present State of Ireland (c. 1596). Tracing the traditional pastoral themes of generational conflict, degeneration, and regeneration in Spenser’s late pastorals, this study considers how Spenser’s inclusion of these pastoral themes shape paradigms of reform in the View. It argues that generational conflict is exacerbated in the colonial space where degeneration is pervasive threatening both the self and the social structure of the English colonial project in Ireland. These connections to pastoral themes suggest that Spenser and his colonial peers, such as Lodowick Bryskett, conceive of their lives in pastoral terms intersected with imperial politics.