The Spider and the Bee Emblem in Edmund Spenser’s Sonnet

Specifi c features of the Renaissance poetics have been studied insufficiently yet, especially the influence on them of the emblematic culture. The emblematic type of thinking was typical for that period, which is evidenced by the fact that both books of emblems and images from them were widely spread. The article offers an analysis of the 71st sonnet from “Amoretti” cycle by Edmund Spenser, where description of an embroidery pattern is combined with its allegorical interpretation, which permits to consider the entire sonnet as a kind of emblem. In contrast to the already existing religious interpretation of The Spider and the Bee emblem, which represented them as an unrighteous man and a true Christian, Spenser gives his own interpretation and associates The Spider and the Bee with lovers. The poet catches his beloved in his love net; and thus he reverses the common Petrarchan topos of the golden hair of the lady who caught her beloved in her net. The free image interpretation is a part of the emblematic thinking, which can give not just one but several interpretations to any object. Therefore, Spenser creates a sonnet referring to both the scholarly (emblems) and the household (embroidery) knowledge of the reader, thus showing his love of compound poetical images. 

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