Plato's Thoughts About Literature Embodied In Edmund Spenser's Amoretti

Edmund Spenser is one of the most prominent poets in English literature of the Renaissance.He is hailed as "the poets' poet" for his consummate technique and far-reaching influence.Amoretti is a unified sequence of 89 sonnets which celebrate Spenser's courtly love for his second wife Elizabeth Boyle.The poetic sequence is still regarded as one of the most famous sonnet sequences of Elizabeth Age and possesses a wider readership until the present century.This thesis attempts to probe into Amoretti from the perspective of Plato's thoughts about literature,consisting of theme,rhetoric as well as poetic creation.Plato is one of the founders of western critical theory.Although he never writes a treatise on literary thoughts,almost each of his dialogues refers to his thoughts about literature.It is impossible to cover every aspect of Plato's thoughts about literature within this thesis.This thesis only focuses on a few books which concentrate on precise usages and definitions of his literary thoughts.This thesis is composed of three major parts,including introduction,main frame,and conclusion.The introduction begins with a review of comments on the poetic sequence from both domestic and overseas academic spheres,followed by development and influence of Plato's thought about literature in Renaissance period and a short explanation of the theories studied in this thesis,ending with an elaboration of feasibility and significance of application of Plato's thoughts about literature in interpreting of the sequence.Chapter One explores Platonic themes displayed in Amoretti.It mainly embodies three aspects.The first is the theme about praise of spiritual beauty;the second is the theme about pursuit of immortality,and the third is the theme about maniacal love.Chapter Two analyzes Platonic rhetorics applied in Amoretti.In classical times,the study of rhetorics equates with what is nowadays considered literary techniques which consists of rhythm,diction and figures of speech and so on.This part focuses on the employment of rhyme scheme and figures of speech in the sequence.Chapter Three discusses Platonic ideas on poetic creation practiced in Amoretti. According to Plato's "dialectic" theory of poetic creation,each part of the sequence is not thrown together at random.As a whole,the poetic sequence should be connected by natural joints and arranged in accordance with appropriate order around a theme.Finally,the application of Plato's thoughts about literature in studying of Amoretti not only illustrates a far-reaching influence of Platonism on Spenser's poetic creation,but also reinforces artistic quality and originality of the sequence.