International conference is a tribute to the late Spenserian scholar A. Barlett Giamatti
It is somewhat surprising to see Major League Baseball, Inc. listed among the sponsors of an international conference at Yale marking the 400th anniversary of the publication of the final books of "The Faerie Queene" by English poet Edmund Spenser.
The sports organization's support for the event is, in fact, quite appropriate, since the event is a tribute to the late Spenserian scholar A. Bartlett Giamatti, the former Yale president and baseball commissioner who often used references from the poet's romantic tale of pastoral gardens, exile and return to offer insights into baseball's place in the American culture and character.
Some 200 scholars from the United States and abroad will be examining Spenser's epic poem for insights of a different nature when they gather for the conference, titled "'The Faerie Queene' in the World, 1596-1996: Edmund Spenser Among the Disciplines," Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 26-28, at the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. In addition to the Yale center and the baseball association, other major sponsors of the event are the James M. and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Pennsylvania State University and The Spenser Society of America.
A civil servant based in Ireland, Spenser originally planned to write a 12-volume work about the adventures of chivalric knights and ladies, with each book focused on a different moral virtue. When books IV-VI of "The Faerie Queene" were published in 1596, he thought he had reached the halfway mark in this project. However, Spenser died in London a mere three years later, impoverished and broken-hearted, following a rebellion in Ireland in which his child and home were lost. Today, "The Faerie Queene" remains as one of the longest poems in the history of English literature, and Spenser is one of the most-imitated of English poets.
The participants at the three-day conference will reassess Spenser's work on "holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy" in its historical, visual, theological, poetic and global contexts. According to the event's organizers, the interdisciplinary conference "will bring together scholars working on Renaissance epic poetry with those working on early modern Irish and English politics; scholars working on the history of ideas with those working on the history of painting, architecture, and other visual representation of the virtues."
Among the major themes of the conference's workshops, panels and roundtables are "Ecclesiastical Politics," "The Afterlife of the Poem," "Visual Rhetoric," "Building Histories," "The Racial Polity" and "Spenser in the Nineties."
There is a fee to attend the conference. For information about registration or a conference schedule, contact Matthew Greenfield, 66 Orange St., New Haven CT 06510. His phone number is 203-777- 7793, and his e-mail address is: matthew.greenfield@yale.edu.
Spenseriana at the Beinecke
In conjunction with the Spenser conference, the Beinecke Library is hosting an exhibit titled "Spenseriana: From Illustrated to Spurious Spenser," which will be on view through Oct. 12.
The display celebrates the 400th anniversary of "The Faerie Queene" in a series of vignettes demonstrating the broad and sometimes bizarre appeal the work has held for readers over four centuries. The show was organized by Jennifer Klein Morrison, a doctoral candidate in the English department.
Highlighting the exhibit are numerous illustrations of "The Faerie Queene," from those found in the 1596 edition of Spenser's works through 20th-century interpretations. These include works by English artist Walter Crane, who produced what is considered the most elaborately illustrated "Faerie Queene" in 1895, and five large watercolors by Lady Diana Beauclerk, an 18th-century ancestor of England's current Princess of Wales, popularly known as "Lady Di."
Because Spenser is one of the most imitated poets in the English language, the exhibit includes an array of adaptations, parodies and spurious works claiming him as author.
The oldest document on view in the Beinecke exhibit is a contemporary manuscript, dated 1580, of "A view of the present estate of Ireland," Spenser's longest prose work.
In addition to a lighthearted section on "Spenser for Kids," the display includes a case devoted to Spenser at Yale. These selections range from John Trumbull's bawdy imitation of Spenser's "Epithalamion" to a copy of the late Bart Giamatti's 1984 lecture on Spenser, "A Prince and Her Poet."
The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is located at 121 Wall St. The exhibition area is open 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday- Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday. Admission is free.