‘The compasse of that Islands space’: Insular fictions in the writing of Edmund Spenser

This article builds on previous work that has explored the geographies of Spenser's writing and places a new focus on his depictions of islands. It considers how these isolated landmasses present unique opportunities for fiction-making in light of their reputation in cartographical history and their appearance in works by Spenser's contemporaries. Recent criticism and theory has drawn attention to the importance of islands in the early modern imagination and this article argues that they can be regarded as key sites of creativity in Spenser's work, which are used by the author to negotiate, for example, the limits of fiction and the strained relationship between England and Ireland at the end of the sixteenth century.