Translatio Materiae: Spenser's Poetics of Matter.

This article examines Edmund Spenser’s poetics of matter in *The Faerie Queene* through the concept of translatio materiae—defined as the movement and transformation of matter—developed from sixteenth-century humanist paradigms of translatio imperii et studii (the transfer of empire and knowledge). Drawing on Spenser’s translation of Joachim du Bellay’s *Les Antiquitez de Rome*, the article argues that Spenser reconceives material remains not merely as symbols of imperial inheritance but as dynamic substances that persist, mutate, and generate new narrative and poetic forms within the epic. Key episodes, such as the death of Errour and Arthur’s defeat of Orgoglio, illustrate how Spenser’s poem enacts translatio materiae by depicting matter’s cyclical decay and regeneration, resisting linear or teleological interpretations of cultural transmission. Ultimately, the article positions *The Faerie Queene* as a self-reflexive work that continuously recycles its own narrative “matter,” embodying a Renaissance poetics attentive to the unpredictable and enduring nature of material legacy.