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    The Horror of Natural History and Spenser's Bestiary of Extremophiles

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    Author
    McAdams, Alexander Lowe
    Date
    2017
    Abstract
    This essay investigates a sea voyage in Book II of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, to which scholars have seldom paid much attention. I argue that the aquatic life forms the Knight of Temperance encounters on his journey shows Spenser’s investment in natural history, a leading force in the scientific culture of his day. By deploying original research, I assert that a careful examination of this passage shows Spenser’s theorization of extreme life, thereby anticipating our modern scientific focus on extremophiles, temperate environments, and the search for extraterrestrial life. This paper ends by proposing that a philosophical conundrum lies at the core of discovery, leaving humans once again questioning their status in the universe.
    Description
    1st prize winner of the Friends of Fondren Library Graduate Research Awards, 2017. This paper was originally prepared for Course ENGL 605 (Fall 2016): Third-Year Writing Seminar, given by Professor Sarah Ellenzweig, Department of English.
    Citation
    McAdams, Alexander Lowe. "The Horror of Natural History and Spenser's Bestiary of Extremophiles." (2017) Rice University: https://hdl.handle.net/1911/93992.
    Keyword
    English
    Publisher
    Rice University
    Citable link to this page
    https://hdl.handle.net/1911/93992
    Rights
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
    Link to License
    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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    • Friends of Fondren Library Research Awards [96]

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    Home | FAQ | Contact Us | Privacy Notice | Accessibility Statement
    Managed by the Digital Scholarship Services at Fondren Library, Rice University
    Physical Address: 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005
    Mailing Address: MS-44, P.O.BOX 1892, Houston, Texas 77251-1892
    Site Map