Stoic settlers: Trevor Cook, ‘Othering Anger: Spenser’s Stoic Colonialism’, The Comparatist, 48, 2024, pp. 20-35 | settler colonial studies blog

Stoic settlers: Trevor Cook, ‘Othering Anger: Spenser’s Stoic Colonialism’, The Comparatist, 48, 2024, pp. 20-35

26Oct24

Excerpt: As an English settler colonist in Munster during the Nine Years’ War (1593–1603), Edmund Spenser had reason to fear the Irish insurgents. He understood where righteous indignation can lead. In his epic romance The Faerie Queene (1590/96), the wronged show no mercy. After the servant of justice defeats and dismembers the villainess Munera in Book Five, he razes her castle to the ground and defaces the stones, “That there mote be no hope of reparation, / Nor memory thereof to any nation” (5.2.28.4–5). So when the forces of Hugh O’Neill, the Earl of Tyrone, advanced toward Spenser’s residence at Kilcolman Castle in October 1598, he fled to nearby Cork and thence to London. It would be reported afterwards, “That the Irish, having robbed Spenser’s goods and burnt his house and a little child newborn, he and his wife escaped” (Jonson 599). Spenser died the next year. His wife and children would later return to Ireland and rebuild Kilcolman, only for it to be destroyed by fire again in 1622. Today, all that remains are the ruins of the south tower, where the locals are keen for them to lie forgotten, despite ongoing efforts by English scholars to promote their historical significance.

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