“Man is not like an Ape”: Facing Life in PROSOPOPOIA. / Or / Mother Hubberds Tale

Abstract

Throughout his oeuvre, Spenser shows a distinct interest in varieties of life. Often found in indistinguishable heaps, these congeries present grounds for deeper thinking about how humans categorize themselves and others. In both the title page and the poem proper of Mother Hubberds Tale, this concern is brilliantly displayed for readers to ponder. The title page takes what might have been a comforting hierarchy of being and upsets it in several ways. The poem then develops this anxiety through its investment in discourses of taxonomy and a thematic emphasis on the face as a locus of acknowledgment. Thus, the poem and its paratext need to be seen for what they are: radical statements about the contestability and uncertainty of the early modern project to draw boundaries between life-forms.