Description

Book Synopsis
Spenser’s ethics offers a novel account of Edmund Spenser as a moral theorist, situating his ethics at the nexus of moral philosophy’s profound transformation in the early modern era, and the English colonisation of Ireland in the turbulent 1580’s and 90’s. It revises a scholarly narrative describing Spenser’s ethical thinking as derivative, nostalgic, or inconsistent with one that contends him to be one of early modern England’s most original and incisive moral theorists, placing The Faerie Queene at the centre of the contested discipline of moral philosophy as it engaged the social, political, and intellectual upheavals driving classical virtue ethics’ unravelling at the threshold of early modernity.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Emptying the virtuous middle in Elizabethan Ireland
1. Milton’s Spenser: An alternative virtue for a fallen world
2. Purposeful lives: Romance narrative and the generation of empires
3. Magnificence: Fashioning the imperial commonwealth
4. The metaphysics of moral being: Time, change, and flourishing in the Gardens of Adonis
5. Civility and government: Virtuous discipline in the mutable world
6. Immoderation and necessity: Spenser’s Machiavelli
Coda
References
Index

Spenser's Ethics: Empire, Mutability, and Moral

    Product form

    A Hardback by Andrew Wadoski

    £76.50

    Includes FREE delivery

    RRP £85.00 – you save £8.50 (10%)

    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Tue 25 Aug 2026.

    1 in stock

      Trusted by thousands of customers. See 2,385+ Customer Reviews

      View other formats and editions of Spenser's Ethics: Empire, Mutability, and Moral by Andrew Wadoski

      Book details

      Publisher Manchester University Press
      Published 28 June 2022
      ISBN-13 9781526165435
      978-1526165435
      ISBN-10 1526165430
      Also in:
      ELT & Literary Studies Literary studies: c 1400 to c 1600 Literary studies: poetry and poets

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Spenser’s ethics offers a novel account of Edmund Spenser as a moral theorist, situating his ethics at the nexus of moral philosophy’s profound transformation in the early modern era, and the English colonisation of Ireland in the turbulent 1580’s and 90’s. It revises a scholarly narrative describing Spenser’s ethical thinking as derivative, nostalgic, or inconsistent with one that contends him to be one of early modern England’s most original and incisive moral theorists, placing The Faerie Queene at the centre of the contested discipline of moral philosophy as it engaged the social, political, and intellectual upheavals driving classical virtue ethics’ unravelling at the threshold of early modernity.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction: Emptying the virtuous middle in Elizabethan Ireland
      1. Milton’s Spenser: An alternative virtue for a fallen world
      2. Purposeful lives: Romance narrative and the generation of empires
      3. Magnificence: Fashioning the imperial commonwealth
      4. The metaphysics of moral being: Time, change, and flourishing in the Gardens of Adonis
      5. Civility and government: Virtuous discipline in the mutable world
      6. Immoderation and necessity: Spenser’s Machiavelli
      Coda
      References
      Index

      Recently viewed products

      © 2026 Book Curl

        • American Express
        • Apple Pay
        • Diners Club
        • Discover
        • Google Pay
        • Maestro
        • Mastercard
        • PayPal
        • Shop Pay
        • Union Pay
        • Visa

        Login

        Forgot your password?

        Don't have an account yet?
        Create account