“The Presiding Genius of Spenser Studies”: William Oram in Scholarship and the Scholarly Community

Abstract

This article considers the influence of William Oram’s generous and welcoming qualities as a scholar both on his critical writings and on his key role in creating the intellectually stimulating and tight-knit international community of Spenser scholars that arose in the late twentieth century and that has continued thereafter. Oram’s decision as general editor of the important collection The Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser not to require rigorous uniformity from its contributors in their editorial efforts allowed readers to experience a beneficially varied and wide-ranging set of approaches to Spenser’s shorter works. His welcoming spirit, in turn, led him to craft introductions for the collection carefully designed to be useful to experienced scholars and to those new to Spenser’s poems alike. Oram’s generosity and welcoming nature were also key to the creation of the intellectually invigorating and long-lasting community of Spenserians that arose in the wake of the establishment in 1976 of the Spenser sessions at the International Congress of Medieval Studies. Oram’s untiring work as an organizer of, participant in, and keen respondent to numerous Spenser sessions there and at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in particular has helped to encourage over four decades of remarkably thoughtful, passionate, and groundbreaking work on Spenser and all his writings.