Spenser's The Faerie Queene

English 514

Dr. Fike

Day One

Assignment for day one: Letter to Raleigh, FQ I.i-ii, Ephesians 6, North's Life of Theseus (handout).

Questions to prepare prior to day one:

·  Group One: What points does Spenser make in his letter to Raleigh?

·  Group Two: What points can you make about the Proem?

·  Group Three: How does North's Life of Theseus illuminate Redcrosse's battle with Errour?

1.  Discussion: What are the key points in Spenser's Letter to Raleigh?

  1. Mode of the work
  2. Delight à à
  3. "ensample" > "rule"
  4. "general end":
  5. Arthur's virtue: "magnificence" or magnanimity
  6. Arthur's role:
  7. Difference between poetry and historiography
  8. "other adventures intermeddled"
  9. General design vs. "tedious and confused"

Mini-lecture:

2.  The general story.

3.  The overall allegory:

  1. Attainment of faith
  2. Key principle:
  3. Good guys and bad guys:
  4. Good guys:
  5. Bad guys:
  6. Ancient Christianity; cf. Foxe's book.
  7. Elizabeth
  8. Points:
  9. True church > RCC
  10. Una = True Church (Elizabeth as head)
  11. Betrothal

4.  Saint George.

  1. Allegory—definition
  2. Redcrosse Knight = Saint George
  3. Holiness
  4. Definition
  5. Etymology: Old English hal (whole)
  6. Private vs. public
  7. Armour: Ephesians 6:11, 16
  8. RCK's armor (the Christian faith itself) > Gawain's shield (a devotional reminder) > Beowulf's armor (a worldly object).

5.  Discussion: The proem:

  1. The shape of a poet's career:
  2. RCK as a bridge figure; see x.60-66
  3. Name: Greek georgos

6.  Discussion: Allegory and the bad guys:

  1. Errour, cave, errare
  2. Archimago
  3. Duessa }
  4. Sans Foy, Loy, and Joy }

7.  Discussion: Questions about Canto 1:

  1. Stanzas 1-2: What do they reveal about RCK?
  2. Stanzas 6-11: What isn't right here?
  3. Errour:
  4. What does the monster look like, and why is this important?
  5. How does RCK win the battle?
  6. How does his victory deconstruct itself? In other words, how is it a not-victory?
  7. How may Spenser be alluding to North's Life of Theseus?
  8. Woods parallel to
  9. Condensation of
  10. Confrontation with an

8.  RCK and Una at Archimago's hermitage:

  1. What two means does Archimago use to trick Redcrosse?
  2. Ivory gate, Morpheus vs. The Matrix
  3. Interpretations of Archimago
  4. Historical allegory
  5. A psychological point

Day Two

Assignment for day two: I.iv-v, xi-xii.

Mini-lecture:

1.  Introductory remarks:

2.  Background on the harrowing of hell:

  1. Definition: rob, spoil, sow with salt so that a field cannot produce a crop; getting out, therefore, means robbing hell.
  2. Christian tradition: Christ's harrowing of hell:
  3. Christ's humiliation (despair) vs. Christ's exaltation (triumph)
  4. Motifs: doors, light, leading captive souls to heavenly bliss (cf. Arthur's role in the Orgoglio episode)
  5. The defeat but not the destruction of Satan (the binding of Satan); man is saved from sin and death, but those qualities are not wiped out.
  6. Demonic figures still walk fairy land; demonic family tree.
  7. Classical tradition: Aeneas's harrowing of hell:
  8. Accompanied by the Sibyl: Aeneas:Sibyl (positive)::RCK:Duessa (negative)::Duessa:Night (both are negative)
  9. Psychological aspect: sleep—the dreams in the tree and the story of the ivory gate; cf. sleep at I.v.17, 45
  10. Key statement about descent and return: "easy the way," etc.

Discussion:

3.  Read iv.2-6. What details suggest that the House of Pride is a dangerous place? What point follows about Redcrosse?

4.  What warning signals do we get in stanzas 8-11? How does Redcrosse respond?

5.  Then we get the pageant of the seven deadly sins. What is the relationship between the seven deadly sins and hell?

  1. They get you condemned to hell.
  2. Personifications in Aeneid and The Mirrour for Magistrates
  3. Hell is psychological
  4. Pain of the senses vs. the pain of damnation
  5. Three points:
  6. Allegorical representations suffer the pains of hell.
  7. Morpheus
  8. RCK goes to bed in v.17

6.  Redcrosse's fight with Sans Joy:

  1. Rationale
  2. How do you read the fight in the allegorical sense?
  3. RCK's joylessness
  4. Fighting over "Fidessa"
  5. Wound
  6. Parody of Una in stanzas 11 and 12

7.  Duessa's trip to hell with Sans Joy:

  1. A.C. Hamilton: "In [TFQ] the adversary [Duessa], not the aged priestess of Phoebus [the Sibyl], makes the prophecy of woe, and the great mother of the hero's adversaries [Night], not the hero's sire, reveals the hero's destiny."
  2. Types of night in TFQ:
  3. Literal
  4. Mythological
  5. Moral
  6. I.v.31
  7. Classical figures: Ixion, Tantalus, Theseus, Sisyphus, Tityus, Typhon, and Typhoeus: PRIDE

8.  The story of Hippolytus.

9.  What is the allegorical significance of Aesculapius's being in hell? (His name is pronounced ES kyoo LAY pee us.)

10.  Is Duessa's descent with Sans Joy a dream? See v.45.

11.  Think about the dungeon beneath the House of Pride: Does RCK measure up as a harrower of hell?

  1. A.S.P. Woodhouse: "the central episodes [of Book I] all move on the level of grace." Agree or disagree?
  2. Orgoglio's dungeon.
  3. Common grace: reason and common sense (dwarf) are God's gifts.

12.  The dragon fight (I.xi):

  1. Previous monsters: Errour, Lucifera's pet dragon, the beast with seven heads on which Duessa rides
  2. How is the dragon (cf. Revelation) described at xi.15 and 54?
  3. What key images do you find at stanzas 26 and 38-39? See 1 Cor. 15:55.
  4. The fight itself: "The victory of any Christian is a defeat of evil and a repudiation of the curse of Adam" (T.P. Roche, Jr.)
  5. Three-day ordeal
  6. Baptism (29), communion (46)
  7. Lifting RCK up high (18)
  8. Brazen tower (xii.3)

13.  Canto 12:

  1. Betrothal
  2. Human community
  3. Chastity
  4. Duessa's letter:
  5. Old law of justice vs. mercy
  6. Cf. Ignaro
  7. Even a mature Christian can fail.
  8. Infernal Triad:
  9. Flesh—Duessa
  10. World—Lucifera
  11. Devil—Errour, Orgoglio, Despaire, dragon