Bart van Es
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199249701
- eISBN:
- 9780191719332
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199249701.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines the attempts made to extend beyond historical endings through the practice of ‘political prophecy’. It is concerned with the changeable reading of old histories. It shows how ...
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This chapter examines the attempts made to extend beyond historical endings through the practice of ‘political prophecy’. It is concerned with the changeable reading of old histories. It shows how the ‘Briton history’, so important in justifying the Tudor dynasty, was also the core narrative of highly subversive manuscript prophecies. It explains that such prophecies multiplied at crisis points in Elizabeth's reign. It adds that they were not only themselves culled from existing histories, they also made routine use of history in order to validate their own supposed prognostications. It establishes Spenser's personal contact with those involved in astrological prophecy, and, as a result, forwards a new understanding of the allusive strategies of The Shepheardes Calendar and the Spenser/Harvey Letters. Investigating the prophecies delivered to Britomart in The Faerie Queene, Books III and V, the chapter argues that this, ultimately, is the most dangerous form that historical narrative can take.Less
This chapter examines the attempts made to extend beyond historical endings through the practice of ‘political prophecy’. It is concerned with the changeable reading of old histories. It shows how the ‘Briton history’, so important in justifying the Tudor dynasty, was also the core narrative of highly subversive manuscript prophecies. It explains that such prophecies multiplied at crisis points in Elizabeth's reign. It adds that they were not only themselves culled from existing histories, they also made routine use of history in order to validate their own supposed prognostications. It establishes Spenser's personal contact with those involved in astrological prophecy, and, as a result, forwards a new understanding of the allusive strategies of The Shepheardes Calendar and the Spenser/Harvey Letters. Investigating the prophecies delivered to Britomart in The Faerie Queene, Books III and V, the chapter argues that this, ultimately, is the most dangerous form that historical narrative can take.
Robert Lanier Reid
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781526109170
- eISBN:
- 9781526121134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526109170.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
Christian Platonic hierarchy shapes Spenser’s epic: a hierarchic family triad, three stages of fall and of recovery. Spenser radically revises this allegory, blamingman, whomwoman lovingly seeks to ...
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Christian Platonic hierarchy shapes Spenser’s epic: a hierarchic family triad, three stages of fall and of recovery. Spenser radically revises this allegory, blamingman, whomwoman lovingly seeks to cure. Books 3-5 show Britomart’s chaste power defeating all males, freeing woman from mastery and self-induced suffering. Theintellective allegory of books 1 and 2reform higher reason, then lower reason, each intripartite form:a triadic family, triple temptings, three-phasetraining of the spiritual and then natural bodies, ending withatriadic Eden.The passional allegory of books 3 and 4 is again transcendent, then immanent. Britomart brings female ascendancy by chaste skill with arms and providential goals. Sheunfolds in three heroic Graces (Florimell, Belphoebe, Amoret). In these passional books the male counterparts (Artegall, Marinell, Timias, Scudamour) are paralyzed;virtuous reunion comes by female prowess and endurance, aided by mothers and female deities. A female theologyrests on virginity and marriage, immaculate conception, Trinitarian identity, epiphanic unveilings, female endurance of a Passion. The sensate allegory of books 5 and 6 subject even Gloriana/Mercilla and Arthur toconfusing materialism. Does the ontological ‘dilation’ of books 1-6 (narrowing images of Duessa, Timias, and satyrs-salvages)show despondency about Irish terrors, or prepare for reversal in books 7-12?Less
Christian Platonic hierarchy shapes Spenser’s epic: a hierarchic family triad, three stages of fall and of recovery. Spenser radically revises this allegory, blamingman, whomwoman lovingly seeks to cure. Books 3-5 show Britomart’s chaste power defeating all males, freeing woman from mastery and self-induced suffering. Theintellective allegory of books 1 and 2reform higher reason, then lower reason, each intripartite form:a triadic family, triple temptings, three-phasetraining of the spiritual and then natural bodies, ending withatriadic Eden.The passional allegory of books 3 and 4 is again transcendent, then immanent. Britomart brings female ascendancy by chaste skill with arms and providential goals. Sheunfolds in three heroic Graces (Florimell, Belphoebe, Amoret). In these passional books the male counterparts (Artegall, Marinell, Timias, Scudamour) are paralyzed;virtuous reunion comes by female prowess and endurance, aided by mothers and female deities. A female theologyrests on virginity and marriage, immaculate conception, Trinitarian identity, epiphanic unveilings, female endurance of a Passion. The sensate allegory of books 5 and 6 subject even Gloriana/Mercilla and Arthur toconfusing materialism. Does the ontological ‘dilation’ of books 1-6 (narrowing images of Duessa, Timias, and satyrs-salvages)show despondency about Irish terrors, or prepare for reversal in books 7-12?
Margaret Christian
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719083846
- eISBN:
- 9781526121042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719083846.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines sermon uses of the image of the sea and the ship to demonstrate that the ocean, for Elizabethans, represented not only a realm of magic and fertility but also the spiritual ...
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This chapter examines sermon uses of the image of the sea and the ship to demonstrate that the ocean, for Elizabethans, represented not only a realm of magic and fertility but also the spiritual dangers of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Sermons by Stephen Gosson, Richard Madox, Robert Wilkinson (among others) as well as Geneva Bible illustrations and glosses, provide parallels for Britomart’s lament at III.iv and a key to the moral meaning of the various settings of Florimell’s adventures: her near-rape by the fisherman, imprisonment by Proteus at III.viii-ix, and rescue by Cymoent in IV.xii. The sea setting sharpens the point of narrative references to divine intervention, and the sermons show how these episodes’ sea settings make sense for Spenser’s dramatizing the incompleteness of the single life that propels men and women toward their destiny of married love.Less
This chapter examines sermon uses of the image of the sea and the ship to demonstrate that the ocean, for Elizabethans, represented not only a realm of magic and fertility but also the spiritual dangers of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Sermons by Stephen Gosson, Richard Madox, Robert Wilkinson (among others) as well as Geneva Bible illustrations and glosses, provide parallels for Britomart’s lament at III.iv and a key to the moral meaning of the various settings of Florimell’s adventures: her near-rape by the fisherman, imprisonment by Proteus at III.viii-ix, and rescue by Cymoent in IV.xii. The sea setting sharpens the point of narrative references to divine intervention, and the sermons show how these episodes’ sea settings make sense for Spenser’s dramatizing the incompleteness of the single life that propels men and women toward their destiny of married love.
