Cheney (English, Penn State U.) and Silberman (English, Baruch College, City U. of New York) present 16 papers that had their origins at a Yale U. conference titled " The Faerie Queene in the World, 1596-1996: Spenser among the Disciplines" held in September, 1996. The essays explore Spenser's antecedents and influences and particularly focus upon what the editors term his "proto-feminism." Broad concerns elicited by the contributions include issues of negotiating literary history and shaping literary concerns, concerns of gender and identity formation, the relationships of colonialism in Spenser's treatments of India and Ireland, and Spenser's representation of inwardness. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)