"Ryse Up <i>Elisa</i>” – Woman Trapped in a Lay: Spenser's "Aprill"

In Edmund Spenser's "Aprill," Colin Cloute, by creating and controlling an idealized woman, has silenced the source of his own creative power. However, Colin's lay contains hints that Elisa is neither perfect nor passive: complex natural and mythological allusions reveal her vitality and strength. Spenser allows the woman's voice to undermine the male poet's authority, thus demonstrating the difficult power struggle between masculine and feminine qualities, between art and life, that both limits and frees the poet in his attempt to create art.