Spenser Flashcards
Faerie queene - quotes Mirabella (Elizabeth)
“Through such her stubborn stiffness, and hard hart,/ many a wretch, for want of remedie,/ did languish long in life consuming smart”
Women in court quote
“She knew the ways to win good will,/ of every Wight,…/ through tempering of her words and looks by wondrous skill”
Faerie Queene - critics
Cooper - Elizabeth - focal point of contemporary literature
McCabe - Spenser invites the reader to “read” between the lines and do their own exegesis. - ie. via the use of the fictional critic EK. “Spenser was Elizabeth’s subject, but she was his” (ie. he created Gloriana) - his poetry is of “engagement not escape” (contemporary issues), fusing allegory and parody.
McEachern - Spenser NOT catholic but had some sympathies for traditional religion?
Baker - Spenser favoured militant protestant patrons (impact on FQ?). His later career: with Devereux, 2nd Earl of Esses - dissatisfied with E’s reign? Also sponsored by Ralegh.
Bellamy - last 3 books - S loses interest, they become more violent
Stephens - archaic and innovative use of language - coinages (blatant) and dialect words, new compounds…
Faerie Queene - about
Books 1-3 published 1590, 4-6 published 1596. Epic “allegory, or darke conceit”, intended to “fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline.” Written in the Spenserian stanza (8 iambic pentameter lines followed by a ninth “alexandrine” in iambic hexameter, rhyme ABABBCBCC). NOT chronological! (many flashbacks/projections etc.) Books subdivided into cantos. Six books completed, projected more to come.
Faerie Queene - key characters
Queen of Faerie = Gloriana (Elizabeth - queen of Glory)
Knight Redcrosse (holiness) and Una, Guyon (temperance), Britomartis (female, virtue) and Sir Artegall.
Duessa (aka Fidessa, is “falsehood” - changes appearance) and Archimago (papish).
Acrasia (woman in the bower of bliss)
Belphoebe (woodland dwelling, eventually loves Timias)
Knight Calidore (champion of Courtesy in book 4)
Faerie Queene - book 1 events
Overarching story: knights sent off from court to find quests and return. Redcrosse fights and kills dragon Errour. Dreams that Una is unfaithful because of Archimago, runs off with Duessa. Goes to the castle of Pride and courts Lucifera. Is trapped in the giant Orgoglio’s castle - is freed by Una and Arthur who take him to the House of Holiness to recover; Redcross kills a dragon and they are married.
Faerie Queene - book 2 events
Guyon - nearly attacks Redcross. Finds a woman who has committed suicide because her lover was killed in the bower of bliss - takes her child, names him Rudymane because he cannot wash the blood off him (sign for revenge). Guyon, after going with Mammon into his cave, eventually makes it to the Bower of Bliss where he resists idleness, violence, and lust to capture Acrasia.
Faerie Queene - Book 3 events
Britomartis rescues the knight Redcross whilst Arthur and Guyon go to rescue Florimell. R defeats Artegall. B and R meet Merlin, who explains B’s destiny to found the English monarchy. B leaves to fight Marinell. Meets Arthur and Sir Satyrane to look for Florimell; B separates and finds Sir Scudamore (‘shield of love’) looking for Lady Amoret, she rescues her from the wizard Busirane - on escaping, they Amoret and Scudamore are united (in 1590 version, NOT 1596).
FQ - key themes
Court and criticism, pastoral, defence of virtue, rapaciousness/sexuality at times, faith. Desire to present the same figures as many times as possible in different ways! (Elizabeth: Gloriana Una, Britomartis…)
FQ - Book 1 quotes
“upon a great adventure was bound/ that greatest Gloriana to him gave”
“virtue gives her self light, through darkness for to wade”
Archimago: “An aged sire, in long black weeds y’clad” “bidding his beads” “His magick bookes and artes of sundry kindes” (papish)
Redcross disturbed by dream: “false shewes abuse his fantasy”/”that troublous dreame gan freshly toss his brain” “it seemd”
Duessa: “a false sorceress,/ that many errant knights hath brought to wretchedness”
Castle of Pride and Lucifera: “on weak foundation ever sit” pageant: “six sage counsellors did ryde” “the first, that all the rest did guyde,/ was sluggish Idleness”
Una, on Redcross: “What man is he, that boasts of fleshly might… [but] against spiritual foes, yields by and by” (conceptions of masculinity, mental vs. physical strength)
After visiting the House of Holiness: “O let me not (quoth he) then turne again/back to the world, whose ioyes so fruitlesse are”
“th’antique world excesse and pride did hate;/ such proud warriors pompe is swollen up but of late” (commentary on court excess)
FQ Book 2 quotes
seduction: “the strong through pleasure soonest fall”
Braggodochio: “with self-loved personage deceived”, to Diana “There maist thou best be seene, and best maist see,/ the wood is fit for beasts, the court for thee”
Palmer, on emotions: “strong waves they make, and cruell battry bend/ gainst fort of reason, it to overthrow”
Guyon resisting mammon’s riches: “All that I need I have;/ what needeth me/ to covet more than I have cause to use?”
People courting Ambition in Mammon’s cave: “Some thought to raise themselves to high degree,/ by riches and unrightous reward,/ some by close shouldring, some by flatteree”
Lesson from Britain’s history, eg. of Goneril/Regan/Cordelia: “that love is not, where most it is profest”
Art and nature in the Bower of Bliss: “so striving each th’other to undermine,/ each did the others worke more beautifye” “lilly paps aloft display’d”
“nought but her lovely face she for his looking left”
FQ Book 3 quotes
Chastity: “that fairest virtue, farre above the rest”
Women not for war - “they have exceld in artes and pollicy”
Timias/Belphoebe - made worse by love “so still his hart woxe sore, and health decayd”
Florimell seeks refuge in the witches “gloomy hollow glen” (ominous sign)
Virginity “shall embellish more your beauty bright”
Malbecco, seeing Braggodochio with his wife: “forgot he was a man, and Gealousie is hight”
Allegorical show of characters in Busirane’s castle: “Reproach the first, shame next, repent behind”
Edmund Spenser
d.1599 Born in London but lived and wrote in Ireland - deeply influenced by Irish Faerie myth. Shepherds Calendar (1579) (imitation of Virgil's Eclogues) Faerie Queene (1590/6)
