{"id":"01KG6S5NC7SKTXTCKE0S8BNTH1","cid":"bafkreiddlnyvn76tmf7uy5icy6wq5nrw5wwcanrqpimz4pdgyc6d5k2gzu","type":"section","properties":{"description":"# Spenser’s treatment of it (1586).\n\n## Overview\nThis section, titled \"Spenser’s treatment of it (1586),\" is a textual component extracted from a larger document. It spans lines 511 to 540 of its source file and was extracted on January 30, 2026.\n\n## Context\nThis section is part of the chapter [VENUS AND ADONIS](arke:01KG6S4BKQ65P7DTQM82TXFB34), which is itself contained within the [PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y) collection. The text was extracted from the file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA). It follows the section titled [The story in England.](arke:01KG6S5NC7Z4VBN4G7GS9MWM3K) and precedes the section titled [Robert Greene.](arke:01KG6S5NCAK41XDRG576B7DWDA).\n\n## Contents\nThe section discusses Edmund Spenser's literary treatment of the Adonis legend, particularly in his poem *Astrophel* (1586) and *The Faerie Queene*. It draws comparisons between Spenser's *Astrophel* and Shakespeare's *Venus and Adonis*, noting similarities in tone and metre. The text highlights Spenser's depiction of Adonis's death and transformation into a flower, as well as his portrayal of Venus's lamentation. It also points out Spenser's divergence from Ovidian tradition by ignoring Adonis's \"coy modesty,\" a characteristic that Shakespeare later emphasized. The section mentions a rare copy of an Italian version of Tarchagnota in the Bodleian Library and references A. H. Bullen's edition of Arber’s *English Garner* (1903).","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T06:25:31.972Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"Spenser’s treatment of it (1586).","end_line":540,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T06:24:08.801Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Spenser’s treatment of it (1586).","source_file":"01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA","start_line":511,"text":"Spenser’s treatment of it (1586).\n\nin his blood that on the ground lay spill’d,\nA purple flower sprung up.\n\nThe curious identity of tone, as well as of topic, can only be appreciated by a close study of the two poems side by side. The metre of Spenser’s *Astrophel*, moreover, was that adopted by Shakespeare in his poem of *Venus and Adonis*. Many a critic might be forgiven if he mistook such a stanza as the following\n\nof which only one copy—in the Bodleian Library—is known (cf. reprint in *Some Longer Elizabethan Poems*, ed. A. H. Bullen, Constable’s edition of Arber’s *English Garner*, 1903, pp. 123, 146). But the Italian version of Tarchagnota has far closer affinity to Shakespeare’s treatment of the incident, than the English translation of the Theocritean idyll or Minturnus’ epigram.\n\n<!-- [Page 37](arke:01KG6QAN0ZWSRT2MXVVECHBH5W) -->\n30\n# VENUS AND ADONIS\n\nfrom Spenser's *Astrophel* for one of those with which *Venus* and *Adonis* concludes:—\n\nHis pallid face, impictured with death,\nShe bathed oft with teares, and dried oft:\nAnd with sweet kisses suckt the wasting breath\nOut of his lips like lilies pale and soft:\nAnd oft she cald to him, who answered nought,\nBut onely by his lookes did tell his thought.\n\nSpenser made a second and an undisguised allusion to the legend in the *Faerie Queene*, where he described ‘the dear Adonis’, the paramour of fair Venus, lying\n\nLapped in flowers and precious spicery\n\nin the fruitful garden called by the name of ‘the wanton boy’. It is in the garden of Adonis that Nature, in Spenser’s allegory, harbours her seeds of life—a philosophical conception which is happily overlooked by Shakespeare.\n\nIt is important to note that Spenser ignores the coy modesty of Adonis. It is not a point on which Ovid is quite explicit, and most of his successors leave it uncertain whether Adonis welcomed or rejected Venus’ embraces. In some of these writers’ pages Adonis’ loving ardour, despite his devotion to the chase, is no cooler than that of Venus. Shakespeare diverges further from the Ovidian scheme in making the boy’s impatience of Venus’ advances the pivot of the tale. Two other English poets, Robert Greene and Marlowe, had already seen, albeit dimly, the poetic value of this development of the legend. Robert Greene devoted to the story two lyrics which figured in his prose romances, and in both the boy’s sensitive shyness is brought into prominence. One of these lyrics, in the six-lined stanza of\n","title":"Spenser’s treatment of it (1586)."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6S4BKQ65P7DTQM82TXFB34","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6S5NC7Z4VBN4G7GS9MWM3K","peer_type":"section","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6S5NCAK41XDRG576B7DWDA","peer_type":"section","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T06:24:12.679Z","ts":"2026-01-30T06:25:32.125Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}