About the Book:” . . . very readable, lucid, intriguing study . . . ” –Spenser Newsletter” . . . a very thoroughgoing inventory of the cruel male fantasies and nightmares imposed on . . . female-gendered figures . . . ” –Studies in English Literature 1500-1900″Cavanagh has managed to give an almost entirely new reading of [The Faerie Queene]; it is the first feminist rereading of the entire epic, and it reshapes the contours of the huge poem in often startling and remarkable ways.” –Maureen Quilligan, University of Pennsylvania