A Sexist Spenser Exposed Through Explication
             The use of poetic forms and literary techniques proved invaluable to Edmund Spenser, poet of the Amoretti sonnet sequences, in his effort to thinly veil sexist beliefs with elaborate words. Myriad readers, easily lulled to sleep like a slumbering soldier inside a foxhole with bullets whizzing overhead, fail to understand the hidden motifs in Spenser's works. Sonnet 64, "Comming to kisse her lyps (such grace I found)," perfectly exemplifies the necessity of the reader to carefully consider the rhyme, meter, and figurative language of a poem in order to grasp the poet's fundamental chauvinistic ideas. With only a brief glimpse, it might be concluded that sonnet 64 is merely about the lustful yearning for a woman's anatomical parts; however, when one considers the preceding poetic forms, it leads the reader to believe that physical attraction, although enjoyable, is also fleeting. Clearly, the positive aspects of intimate relationships with women combine with numerous negative features as well.
             Noticeably, Spenser's use of figurative language suggests that sonnet 64 is more than a mere inventory of the female anatomy. Figurative language, evident in the forms of both similes and metaphors and methodically placed throughout the fourteen-line poem, plays a major role in the development of the poet's idea. The first four lines offer readers an extended metaphor which suggests that the female can be compared to a "gardin of sweet flowres" (2) when the speaker attempts to "kisse her lyps" (1), yet in doing so smells her sweet aroma and the "dainty odours" that she almost haphazardly "threw around" (3). When Spenser compares the female to a garden, as implied throughout the first two lines, it sets the stage for an eight-line barrage of significant similes, each of which must be investigated in order to comprehend the ...