Download or read book The Specter of Dido written by John Watkins and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book dismantles the stereotype of Spenser as one who blurs earlier epic traditions. John Watkins's examinations of Spenser's major poetry reveal a poet keenly attuned to dissonances among his classical, medieval, and early modern sources. By bringing Virgil into an intertextual dialogue with Chaucer, Ariosto, and Tasso, and several Neo-Latin commentators, Spenser transformed the most patriarchal of genres into a vehicle for praising the Virgin Queen.