Sources

Abstract

Renaissance humanists were not alone in their fascination with sources, with moving upriver to see where the tributaries of a literary river might diverge or where some originating fountain might be located.¹ Renaissance antiquarians thought the same way about history: “My thirst compeld mee always seeke the Fountaines,” wrote John Selden.² Similarly, Renaissance rulers were often obsessed with dynastic origins—and hence in need of dynastic epics. If less compelled to search out—or even to believe in— literary fountains, modern readers can also find tracing sources useful or entertaining. Locating minor ones in Spenser’s textual geography can reveal his methods, while noticing the major ones configures a “horizon of expectation,” in Jauss’s still useful phrase. In most current criticism, though, flowing water and half-hidden springs have given way to fibers and looms: fingering the warp and woof of intertextuality arouses more excitement than stumbling upon yet one more rivulet of “influence” or dribbling “source.” An intertext is something that writers usually hope we notice.