Not So Scholarly

I made a bit of a blunder (not my first!) back on the first day of the month when I referred to Edmund Spenser summarising his own work in his gloss on March from The Shepheards Calendar. I'd completely forgotten that the commentary is attributed to one E.K. and whoever that may be there's a good chance it's not E.S. himself. Mind you, according to a fairly scholarly introduction to the poem I came across online from one R. S. Bear at the University of Oregon recent opinion has come to prefer the assumption that E.S. is glossing his own poem. So maybe my cavalier statement wasn't entirely foolish.

The thing is, though, that at some fundamental level I don't really care and, since I enjoy the idea that the poet is commenting on himself and his attitudes, I'll continue to feel that's the best way to read the text. It's no wonder that the academic world never felt it quite fitting to hold me to its collective bosom. Pretty wise if you ask me.