Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene (Spenser)'

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003.<br>Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-221). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Renaissance patriarchy maintained very clear distinctions between what was appropriately "masculine" and "feminine." Modern feminist criticism and research have tried to dispel some of the old illusions, and so they offer a fresh approach to evaluating the personal and social implications of gender in the Renaissance. Such perspectives can be specifically applied for enhanced appreciation of Spenser's Faerie Queene, after an initial assessment of Renaissance patriarchy itself.<br>The Faerie Queene, we find, questions many important conventions of gender roles in Renaissance patriarchal society. Spenser crosses the familiar boundaries of appropriate or accepted female social status and options, and situates both males and females in roles which seemingly challenge the existing conventions by advancing the possibility of a new perspective. Spenser examines femininity from a specifically feminine point of view and invites a broadened understanding of the feminine. He portrays many different aspects of femininity and his titular heroine, Britomart, approximates the modern androgyne. The poem suggests a variety of alternative gender roles for both females and males, and also uses symbolic aspects of gender, so that characters ultimately cease to be gender-specific in their significance. That too tends to soften distinctions between males and females, by allegorically representing the self in such a way that it is seen to have both masculine and feminine aspects.<br>Spenser's attempt to broaden his readers' understanding and valuation of the feminine and his suggestions of alternative roles for both genders, helped open the door to new freedom and equality for women by inviting redefinition or revision of culturally received notions of gender and its personal and social implications.

This dissertation focuses on how a series of major characters in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (Prince Arthur, Britomart, Duessa, Artegall, and those characters that figure forth the poet's sovereign, Elizabeth I) enhance a reader's appreciation of the epic's complex topical allegory and its moral implications. By closely interpreting the respective functions and narratives of these characters, and additionally examining some of Spenser's main techniques of character development, I propose that the above figures both articulate and underscore central aspects of the poet's politically encomiastic and critical agendas. These specific techniques of character development include composition, fragmentation, and metamorphosis (both positive, as in the case of Britomart, as well as pejorative, such as in the case of the wicked enchantress Duessa). By thus investigating the topical import of The Faerie Queene 's allegory, I further demonstrate both how the epic's major characters illustrate contemporary Elizabethan moral and political ideals and, in certain cases, exemplify serious perceived threats to those ideals. The dissertation also indicates that the poet consistently and cautiously treads a fine line between allegorically depicting controversial historical issues and events (towards which at least some Elizabethans were ambivalent), and praising Elizabeth and her successful governing abilities. This crucial tension, reflected in the epic's diverse plots, invests the topical aspects of the poem with much of their complexity. Yet, given that Spenser's main aims included portraying his queen as a model monarch, while simultaneously enhancing concepts of English nationhood, his criticisms of her government and policies remain tentative. Loyalty to the Tudor sovereign and to the predominant Protestant faith in England are fundamental to the epic, for the poet assumes they provide his audience with an essential foundation for personal moral "self-fashioning." Eclectica

Thesis (MA)-- Stellenbosch University, 2000.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Although The Faerie Queene was written in 1589 as a commentary on and criticism of issues which would concern many sixteenth-century Protestant subjects of Queen Elizabeth of England, Spenser creates in his text worlds which even a twentieth-century reader can find significant. Allegorical representations, mythical, historical and poetical figures and pastoral retreats, for example, not only reflect the harsh realities which sixteenth-century English society experienced, but also offer the possibility of escape to worlds of divine and charitable interaction. Spenser, drawing on Philip Sidney's An Apology for Poetry, constructs an ideal world where there is no strife, only peaceful interaction and stability, as opposed to the problems and fears of the "real" world of sixteenth-century England. The story of Faery Land is, therefore, about a magical world of wish fulfilment, but at the same time it also draws on the concrete reality of sixteenth-century England, which has relevance for a twentieth-century world still concerned with many of the same issues of crime, justice, religion, government, relationships and history. Discussion in this thesis focuses on the different "real" and ideal worlds and the devices used to represent these worlds in the narrative of The Faerie Queene. Chapter 1 deals with allegorical representation and distinguishes between two levels of representation: a "literal" or primary level of signification which reflects the everyday experiences of the sixteenth-century reader, and the allegorical level whereby these experiences and desires are personified. The allegory, in tum, communicates and reveals different doctrines or themes: this chapter shows how Redcrosse represents the struggle of the religious man who finally earns salvation by perseverance and dependence on the grace of God. In this allegorical world, Spenser shows the religious conflicts, doubts and victories of the sixteenth-century Protestant man. Chapter 2 explores a series of allegorical parallels in plot, theme and structure in Book 2 of The Faerie Queene which create the "real" and ideal worlds through which Guyon now runs his race. Here, the discussion focuses on the clues provided by the allegory which lead the reader to a redefinition of the categories of good and evil. The primary purpose of the allegory is, therefore, didactic and the sixteenth-century reader is taught how to interpret the signs and symbols of Spenser's allegorical, historical and mythical worlds. This chapter concludes with an examination of Spenser's mythical devices and an exploration of the historical significance of his fictional characters and plots - all of which help the reader to grasp the significance of Spenser's world of knights and fairies. Chapter 3 focuses on a discussion of Books 3 and 4, in which issues of love and friendship come to shape Spenser's ideal world. The analyses consider how sixteenth-century perceptions of marriage, love and power may have influenced his conceptionalization of such an ideal world. The chapter concludes with an exploration of sixteenth-century concerns with time and discord, and demonstrates how Spenser fmally resolves these issues in his vision of the Garden of Adonis. Chapter 4 deals with Book 5, where Artegall represents the just knight. Here the thesis examines Spenser's political aspirations, and shows how historical events are reflected in the actions of characters and how they may influence Spenser's vision of the ideal society with its just ruler. This discussion also focuses, among other things, on those factors which may have contributed to Spenser's disillusionment with sixteenth-century society. Chapter 5 concludes with Spenser's pastoral ideal of Book 6, which brings the promise of peace and prosperity, as opposed to a life of waste and thwarted ambition at Court. On Mount Acidale, Spenser's alternative worlds coincide, as Calidore, representing the fallen and "real" world of Faery Land, is allowed a glimpse of the poetic and divine worlds which the poet, Colin Clout, already shares with three Graces and his mistress. Chapter 5 examines the poet's autobiographical persona in the figure of Colin Clout and the relevance of his appearance on Mount Acidale in particular, and in the poem in general. It is the intention of this thesis to follow the route which Spenser has marked out, to read and interpret the signs and to finally share in this world of dream and thought, experience and vision.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ten spyte van die feit dat Spenser se Faerie Queene reeds in 1589 geskryfis as 'n kommentaar of kritiek op kwessies wat vir menige sestiende-eeuse Protestantse onderdaan van koningin Elizabeth van Engeland van belang sou wees, is daar in Spenser se teks wêrelde geskep wat selfs vir 'n twintigste eeuse leser waarde sou hê. Allegoriese voorstellings, mitologiese-, historiese-, en poëtiese figure, asook herderstoevlugte byvoorbeeld reflekteer nie net die harde realiteite waaraan 'n sestiende-eeuse Engelse gemeenskap blootgestel is nie, maar bied ook die moontlikheid van ontsnapping na wêrelde van goddelike en mensliewende interaksie. Spenser, wat gebruik maak van Sidney se An Apology for Poetry, konstrueer 'n ideale wêreld waar daar nie konflik of oorlog is nie, slegs vreedsame interaksie en stabiliteit; teenoor die probleme en vrese of "realiteite" wat 'n sestiende-eeuse Engeland gekenmerk het. Die Faerie Queene gaan dus oor 'n verbeeldingryke wêreld van wensvervulling, maar terselfdertyd verwys dit ook na die konkrete realiteit van 'n sestiende-eeuse Engeland wat relevansie het vir 'n twintigste-eeuse gemeenskap nog steeds gemoeid met baie van dieselfde kwessies rakende misdaad, geregtigheid, godsdiens, regering, verhoudings en geskiedenis. Bespreking in hierdie tesis fokus op die verskillende "werklike" en ideale wêrelde asook die tegnieke waarvan daar gebruik gemaak is om hierdie wêrelde in Spenser se gedig voor te stel. Hoofstuk 1 bespreek die allegoriese voorstelling en onderskei tussen twee vlakke van representasie: 'n "letterlike," of primêre vlak van aanduiding wat die alledaagse ervaringe van die sestiende-eeuse leser voorstel en die allegoriese vlak waar hierdie ervaringe en begeertes gepersonifieer word. Die allegorie, op sy beurt, kommunikeer en onthul verskillende leerstellings ofboodskappe: hierdie hoofstuk wys hoe Rederosse die stryd van die gelowige man verteenwoordig wat uiteindelik gered word as gevolg van volharding en erkenning van sy afhanklikheid van God. Hierdie wêreld beeld die konflik, onsekerheid en oorwinning van die sestiende-eeuse Protestant uit. Hoofstuk 2 ondersoek 'n reeks allegoriese paralleie in plot, tema en struktuur in Boek 2 van The Faerie Queene wat die "werklike" en ideale wêrelde skep waardeur Guyon nou sy wedren hardloop. Hier fokus die bespreking op die leidrade wat deur die allegorie voorsien word en waardeur die leser gelei word tot 'n herdefinieering van die kategorieë van goed en sleg. Die primêre doel van die allegorie is dus didakties en die sestiende-eeuse leser word geleer hoe om die tekens en simbole van Spenser se allegoriese, historiese en mitologiese wêrelde te interpreteer. Hierdie hoofstuk sluit af met 'n ondersoek na Spenser se mitologiese tegnieke en die geskiedkundige relevansie van sy fiktiewe karakters en plot - waarvan laasgenoemde die leser help om Spenser se wêreld met sy ridders en feë te kan interpreteer. Hoofstuk 3 fokus op 'n bespreking van Spenser se Boeke 3 en 4 waar liefde en vriendskap bydra tot die skep van Spenser se ideale wêreld. Die hoofstuk ondersoek hoe sestiende-eeuse persepsies van die huwelik, liefde en mag Spenser se konsep van so 'n ideale wêreld kon beïnvloed. Die hoofstuk sluit af met 'n ondersoek na sestiende-eeuse bemoeienis met tyd en wanorde en demonstreer hoe Spenser uiteindelik 'n oplossing vind in sy visie van die Tuin van Adonis. Hoofstuk 4 bespreek Boek 4 waar Artegall die ridder van reg en geregtigheid is. Hier ondersoek die tesis Spenser se politiese aspirasies en wys hoe geskiedkundige gebeure eerstens in die optrede van karakters gereflekteer word en tweedens ook Spenser se visie van die ideale gemeenskap met sy regverdige leier kon beïnvloed. Die bespreking fokus ook onder andere op daardie faktore wat kon bydra tot Spenser se ontnugtering met 'n sestiendeeeuse gemeenskap. Hoofstuk 5 sluit af met Spenser se herders-ideaal in Boek 6 wat die belofte bring van vrede en voorspoed, teenoor 'n lewe van verspeelde en verlore geleenthede of misplaaste ambisie in Elizabeth se hof. Dit is op Mount Acidale dat Spenser se verskillende wêrelde saamkom wanneer Calidore, wat die sondige en "werklike" wêreld verteenwoordig, 'n vlugtige blik in die poëtiese en goddelike wêrelde gegun word. 'n Wêreld waarin die digter, Colin Clout en die drie "Graces" saam met sy geliefde, reeds deel. Hoofstuk 5 ondersoek die digter se outobiografiese persoon in die figuur Colin Clout en die relevansie van sy spesifieke verskyning op Mount Acidale en sy algemene verskyning in die gedig. Dit is die doel van hierdie tesis om die roete te volg wat Spenser uitgelê het, om die tekens te lees en te interpreteer en om ten slotte te deel in hierdie wêreld van droom en gedagtes, ervaring en vISIe.

The study inquires into the dynamic relationship between Protestantism and culture in The Faerie Oueene. The American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr makes penetrating analyses of the relationship between man's cultural potentials and the insights of Protestant Christianity which greatly illuminate how Spenser searches for a comprehensive religious, ethical, political, and social vision for the Christian community of Protestant England. But Spenser maintains the tension between culture and Christianity to the end, refusing to offer a merely coherent system of principles based on the doctrine of Christianity.

History in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene Book V and his View of the Present State of Ireland reflects the basic assumptions and characteristics of Elizabethan territorial history, a form observed in the geographic basis of chorography, in the metaphoric expression of the British past, and in the contemporary English enthusiasm for state, county, and city histories. William Lambarde's A Perambulation of Kent, the earliest English model for Spenser's territorial history, employs the antiquary's tentative empirical methodology in a study of sources newly freed of myth, legend, and unreliable antiquity. Accepting the developmental historical perspective of the territorial historians, Spenser in his View discusses the susceptibility of certain positive laws to the ravages of time and circumstance and argues for a reformation of those laws and their administration in Ireland. Similarly, justice in book V is a virtue of reformation that requires a "physician" who diagnoses, cures, and prescribes a diet of new, well-ordered laws for the patient-state, the primary danger to "recural" existing in laws abrogated or perverted since their inception. While accepting the workings of divine and natural law in history, Spenser focuses on the justiciar's secular role in terms of political more than providential causation, legal more than moral justice, and practical more than theoretical law. As England's first justiciar Artegall presents a righteous response to original tyranny in a prelegal society and acquits himself on the charges of "unmanly guile" and "reproachful cruelty" by representing human justice based on laws responsive to season. In the historical domains of Book V Arthur's presence exemplifies providence in human justice, Artegall's actions man's secular control over responsive lawmaking and territorial rebellion, and Radigund's tale the imposition of natural law on justice. The legal and topical content of Book V's poetic journeys suggest the territorial historian's "perambulation" in which Spenser's heroes learn the history of each canto's territory before a reforming justice can operate. As feigned antique history merges with topical event, the Legend of Justice becomes an innovative, optimistic, and uniquely Elizabethan glimpse of new territory.

This study examines the sixteenth-century English Reformation background of Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book 3. Recovering this material is not simply a matter of opening a Bible, for various groups in the period, both Catholic and Reformer, interpreted its passages differently. The Book's four primary female characters, Belphoebe, Florimell, Britomart and Amoret, embody different aspects of the virtue, and these come into sharper focus in the light of this background. After a general survey of previous discussions of this topic, Chapter 1 examines the virgin Belphoebe and attitudes about celibacy and virginity current in sixteenth-century England, finding that neither Catholic nor Reformer disparaged this state, although in practice they differed dramatically. Chapter 2, considering the plight of Florimell, shows how her actions demonstrate that her chastity is, as these Reformation writers urge, a matter of the mind and soul, the springs from which virtue and its opposites flow. Her quality derives from such inner conviction. Next, Chapter 3, looking at Britomart, shows that Reformation writers generally do not speak of human love, even in marriage, in a way that comes close to Spenser's poem. However, when they deal with spiritual love, the love the soul is to have for God, they describe it in terms which sound very like those of passionate romantic love. The final chapter brings the insights of the preceding essay to bear on the closing cantos and Amoret's distress. Seen against this background, while she may appear helpless, her mind, like Florimell's, is constant and firm; she remains chaste. Indeed, she prefers imprisonment and even death, to surrendering to her captor. Like both Belphoebe and Britomart, what underlies her behaviour is her prior love for her beloved, which is the basis of her chastity, just as the Reformation writers understand it. The perspective on Spenser's poem provided by this Reformation material gives rise to new insights into the text

Le livre III de The Faerie Queene, d'Edmund Spenser (1552-1598) est un livre charnière chez cet auteur qualifié de médiéviste par ses contemporains. Décrit et exposé aux strophes 22 et 23 du chant 3, il représente, dans l'iconographie élisabétaine, l'arbre généalogique, à la fois arbre dynastique et arbre christique. Il est cependant intéressant d'observer ses ramifications poétiques, véhiculant des concepts comme celui de l'enfantement perçu à travers le topos allégorique de l'arbre de vie et de mort, lui-même porteur d'autres allégories et mythes, en particulier ceux traitant des métamorphoses de l'humain en plantes ou en arbre. Le motif du livre III est dès lors appréhendé sous ses détails figuratifs, à savoir des icones, à l'origine du discours maniériste dans la poésie spenserienne. Ainsi, l'arbre comme motif devient le support d'une écriture qui est en soi une arborescence<br>The third book of The Faerie Queene written by Edmund Spenser (1552-1598) and made out public in 1593, is a book marking a turning point in this so-called medieval writer and poet. The tree is everywhere in Book III. Described and exposed in stanzas 22 and 23 of Canto 3, it represents, in the Elizabethan iconography, a genealogical tree, both a dynastic tree and a Christian motif. It is however worth pointing out its poetic branches, at the origins of such a concept as Birth, seen through the allegorical topos of the tree of life and death. The latter carries out other myths and allegories, in particular those dealing with metamorphoses – metamorphoses of human being in trees or in plants for instance. As a result, the tree of Book III can be read and seen through figurative details, called icons, giving birth to mannerist discourse in Spenser'poetry. Up to this point, the motif in itself branches out into a writing

Thesis (B.A. honors)--Georgia State University, 2006.<br>Dr. Robert Sattelmeyer, committee chair; Wayne Erickson, committee member. Electronic text (40 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed May 7, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-40).

Book Six of The Faerie Queene deals with the complexities of courtesy in a socially changing world. Calidore, the protagonist of Book Six, sets out to defeat the Blatant Beast, the chief enemy of courtesy, but abandons his quest midway through the book in order to live the shepherds’ life. Despite the ethical ambiguity associated with Calidore’s abandoning his quest, this pastoral setting should enable him to deepen his understanding of the nature and practice of courtesy. However, Calidore is unable to grow, and the poet essentially gives up on his own poetic quest.

As epic was considered a culturally comprehensive genre, so Spenser's Faerie Queene and Milton's Paradise Lost provide an effective locus for inquiry into literary representations of body marks in the Renaissance, and hence of the body itself. While grounded on central principles of Renaissance poetics such as delightful teaching, utpictura poesis, and catharsis, Spenser's and Milton's graphic accounts of wounds and diverse other types of body marks show corporeality can have positive import for the soul and heroic identity, just as they are shaped in part by bodily experienees. This dissertation thus reconsiders the widespread assumption that early moderns primarily viewed the body as a subservient yet sometimes threatening container for the soul....<br>Une épopée fut culturellement considérée comme un vaste genre: The FaerieQueene, et Paradise Lost, de Spenser et Milton, sont pertinents pour l'étude desreprésentations littéraires des marques corporelles durant la Renaissance, et du corps.Basées sur les principes de la poésie de l'époque, comme l'enseignement délicieux, utpictura poesis, et la catharsis, les explications graphiques de blessures et autres cicatricesde Spenser et Milton montrent que la matérialité peut avoir une portée positive sur l'âmeet l'identité héroïque: elles sont formées par des expériences corporelles.

À partir de définitions empruntées à la philosophie antique (Platon, Aristote), à la littérature païenne (Ovide), à la théologie chrétienne (Augustin, Thomas d’Aquin), ou encore à la médecine (de Galien à Robert Burton), cette thèse étudie les représentations du désir dans la poésie narrative élisabéthaine des années 1590, en particulier chez Shakespeare (Venus and Adonis), Marlowe et Chapman (Hero and Leander) et Spenser (The Faerie Queene, II et III). Le postulat de départ est que le désir détermine les conditions de sa représentation : il est ainsi à la fois objet poétique et principe de création littéraire. L’approche rhétorique cible les figures de style associées au mouvement : la métaphore et la métonymie, mais aussi les figures de construction qui jouent sur l’ordre des mots et les figures de pensée qui se dévoilent progressivement, comme l’allégorie. Si le désir fonctionne comme un lieu commun dans les textes de la Renaissance anglaise, le recours à une rhétorique commune et le partage d’un même lieu physique ne garantissent pas nécessairement le rapprochement des corps. C’est face à face que sont envisagés le corps désiré, caractérisé par sa fermeture et considéré comme une œuvre d’art intouchable, et le corps désirant, organisme vivant exposé à la contamination. La perméabilité gagne le poème lui-même, dans son rapport à son environnement politique et social, dans son utilisation de ses sources et dans sa composition. Parce qu’il joue un rôle en tant que mécanisme de progression du récit, notamment dans la relation entre description et narration, le désir invite à envisager la mimésis comme un processus réversible<br>Starting from definitions of desire borrowed from ancient philosophers (Plato, Aristotle), classical poets (Ovid), Christian theologians (Augustine, Thomas Aquinas), and physicians (from Galen to Robert Burton), this dissertation studies the representations of desire in Elizabethan narrative poetry from the 1590s, and more particularly in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, Marlowe and Chapman’s Hero and Leander, and Spenser’s Faerie Queene (II and III). The guiding hypothesis is that desire determines the terms and images in which it is represented; it is therefore both a poetical object and a principle of literary creation. Using a rhetorical approach, I focus on stylistic devices linked with motion: metaphor and metonymy, but also figures of construction which play on word order, and figures such as allegory, which progressively unravel thought. Although desire does act as a commonplace in Early Modern texts, sharing the same language and the same locus does not necessarily entail physical communion for the bodies involved. The body of the beloved, enclosed upon itself and depicted as an untouchable work of art, is pitted against the lover’s organism, alive and exposed to contamination. The poem itself becomes permeable in relation to its social and political environment, in its use of sources, and in its compositional procedures. Desire articulates description and narration, leading the narrative forward but also backward, which suggests that mimesis can be a reversible process

From introduction: In the sixth book of The Faerie Qveene, the reader is presented with a vision of the Graces and their attendants dancing on Mount Acidale to the piping of a simple shepherd. Spenser identifies this favoured musician as Colin Clout and then goes on to pose a seemingly inconsequential rhetorical question. "Who knowes not Colin Cloute?” he asks. The note of confident pride which can be discerned in the query clearly reveals Spenser's peculiar interest in one of his most intriguing creations. It is almost impossible to read a representative selection of Spenser's poetical works without noticing the hauntingly frequent appearances of his "Southerne shepheardes boye". Colin appears or is named in no fewer than six of Spenser's poems.

My thesis proposes a feminist-queer reading of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene in response to Julian Wolfreys’ “The ‘Endlesse Worke’ of Transgression”. I examine the challenges to male authority that the low-born poet, Spenser, faced when he presented his manual for the formation of new English subjects to his sovereign queen, Elizabeth I. The Prefatory Letter to Raleigh and passages from the 1590 version of the epic provide evidence to support the view that traditional hierarchical male/female binaries may have been destabilized by the presence of an unmarried queen. My thesis also supplements Wolfreys’ essay with historical information regarding Mary Tudor and Mary Stuart in order to underscore the ethnocentric aspect of the process of “othering” that takes place in The Faerie Queene.

By examining Renaissance criticism both literary and musical, framed in the context of the contemporaneous obsession with the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Horace, among others, this thesis identifies the parallels in poetic and musical practices of the time that coalesce to form a unified idea about the poet-as-singer, and his role in society. Edmund Spenser and John Milton, who both, in various ways, lived in periods of upheaval, identified themselves as the poet-singer, and comprehending their poetry in the context of this idea is essential to a fuller appreciation thereof. The first chapter addresses the role that the study of rhetoric and the power of oratory played in shaping attitudes about poetry, and how the importance of sound, of an innate musicality to poetry, was pivotal in the turn from quantitative to accentual-syllabic verse. In addition, the philosophical idea of music, inherited from antiquity, is explained in order elucidate the significance of “artifice” and “proportion”. With this as a backdrop, the chapters following examine first the work of Spenser, and then of Milton, demonstrating the central role that music played in the composition of their verse. Also significant, in the case of Milton, is the revolution undertaken by the Florentine Camerata around the turn of the seventeenth century, which culminated in the birth of opera. The sources employed by this group of scholars and artists are identical to those which shaped the idea of the poet-as-singer, and analysing their works in tandem yields new insights into those poems which are considered among the finest achievements in English literature.

The thesis demonstrates the extent to which the sixteenth-century allegorical epic poem, The Faerie Queene, engages with early modern theories of salvation. Much has been written about Spenser’s consideration of theological ideas in Book I and this has prompted scholars to speculate about the poet’s own doctrinal inclinations. However, little has been written about the ways in which the remaining books in the poem also explore Christian ideas of atonement, grace and damnation. This study advances Spenserian scholarship by stressing the soteriological dimension of books II, III, IV and VI. It considers how the poem’s doctrinal ambiguity would have meant that Spenser’s readers would have been able to interpret the poem in terms of the different schools of thought on the conditionality, or otherwise, of election and reprobation. As the thesis suggests, these particular books were alive to the doctrinal disagreements of the period, and explore the complex theological positions and divisions that existed at the time. By shedding light on the religious tenor of these remaining books, the study has implications for our sense of how the poem would have prompted sixteenth century readers to reflect on the means of their own salvation.

In his Book of the Courtier, Castiglione appeals to the Renaissance notion of self-fashioning, the idea that individuals could shape their identity rather than relying solely on the influence of external factors such as birth, social class, or fate. While other early modern authors explore the practice of self-fashioning—Niccolò Machiavelli, for example, surveys numerous princes identifying ways they have molded themselves—Castiglione emphasizes the necessity of modeling one's-self after a variety of sources, "[taking] various qualities now from one man and now from another." In this way, Castiglione advocates for a self-fashioning grounded in a discriminating kind of synthesis, the generation of a new ideal form through the selective combination of various source materials. While Castiglione focuses on the moves necessary for an individual to fashion himself through this act of discriminatory mimesis, his views can explain the ways authors of the period use source material in the process of textual production. As poets and playwrights fashioned their texts, they did so by consciously combining various source materials in order to create not individuals, as Castiglione suggests, but characters to represent new cultural ideals and values. Early moderns viewed the process of textual, as well as cultural production, as a kind of synthesis. Creation through textual fusion is particularly common in early modern accounts of the heroic, in which authors synthesize classical conceptions of the hero, which privilege the completion of martial feats, and Christian notions of the heroic, based on the contemplative nature of Christ. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how Thomas Kyd in The Spanish Tragedy (1585), Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene (1590), William Shakespeare in Titus Andronicus (1594), and John Milton in A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle (1632) syncretized classical and Christian notions of the heroic ideal in order to comment upon and shape political, social, and literary discourses. By recognizing this fusion of classical heroism with contemplative heroism, we gain a more nuanced understanding of the reception of classical ideas within an increasingly secular society.

This Master’s Thesis seeks to explain the internal conflicts faced by Guyon, the titular hero of Book II of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Starting with Thomas Aquinas’ designations of the sensitive versus the intellectual appetite, I show that Guyon struggles to maintain the dominance of his intellectual appetite as he puts his vaunted temperance to a series of tests. The hero manages to appease his sensitive appetite through the vice of curiositas, yet the power of his sensitive appetite demands dramatic and violent acts of repression to quash it in Mammon’s Cave and in the Bower of Bliss. Guyon’s intellectual appetite to maintain temperance in Gloriana’s kingdom, aided by the guidance of the Palmer, leads Guyon to succeed in his quest yet reveals the incompatibility between temperance and the desirous and glory-seeking life of a knight errant.

abstract: This paper utilizes insights from emerging monster theory, particularly the idea that monsters are cultural representations, to examine the representation of the Gyant and the figure Talus in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene. The thesis posits that contrary to most critical readings, the episode concerning the Gyant focuses on a portion of the 16th century English Cultural Body-the peasants, rather than the Irish or another cultural subgroup. The thesis also argues that through the application of monster theory, the complicated political sympathies of the author towards the English lower class emerge, and the English third estate gains a voice.<br>Dissertation/Thesis<br>M.A. English 2014

My thesis is comprised of two articles, titled "Interpreting Britomart's Encounters with Art: The Cyclic Nature of Ekphrasis in Spenser's Faerie Queene III," and "Picture This, Imagine That: Teaching Visual Literacy in the Disciplines." The purpose of my first article is to argue that Edmund Spenser uses ekphrasis in his epic poem The Faerie Queene to draw comparisons between the regenerative natures of both art and life. I support my argument by examining three ekphrastic instances experienced by Britomart, the central knight figure of Book III of the poem: a magic mirror forged by Merlin, a tapestry telling the story of Venus and Adonis, and a statue of Hermaphrodite recollected by the narrator. Through close reading and the assistance of Murrary Krieger's ekphrastic principle of "stillness," I support that all three visual art objects underline and associate with the themes of cyclic regeneration in Britomart's quest, and ultimately reveal Britomart to be an exemplary reader of art for readers to emulate. The purpose of my second article is to develop an economically, technologically, and theoretically accessible framework for teaching visual literacy in the disciplines. To accomplish my goal, I extrapolate from Classical rhetoric's pedagogic use of ekphrasis as the first systematized method for teaching visual conceptualization, and adapt and extend it to suit the present needs of students in the 21st-Century classroom. To communicate the urgency of the need for students to enrich proficiency at visual literacy, I provide a literature review that narrates the growing need expressed by visual literacy scholars, composition theorists, visualization theorists and specialists, and the library community for an overarching visual literacy framework that provides scaffolding and common language for students. To demonstrate the framework's usability, I apply it to three disciplinary visuals: a World War 1-era poster by the American Red Cross, a museum installation exhibit for communicating marine science to the public, and the Alpha Helix model created by Linus Pauling. I also offer suggestions for classroom practices and activities for using the framework across K-12 through university-level teaching.<br>Graduation date: 2013

Ce mémoire a pour sujet les œuvres réalisées à la fin du XVIIIe et au début du XIXe siècle par Johann Heinrich Füssli, inspirées de l'œuvre littéraire The Faerie Queene (1590-1596), du poète anglais Edmund Spenser. Au nombre de quinze, ces œuvres sont abordées en tant que corpus au sein de l'œuvre de Füssli. L'objectif du mémoire est d'étudier et de documenter, au moyen d'un catalogue raisonné, ces œuvres à sujets spensérien. Une étude stylistique et iconographique qui tient compte des stratégies formelles utilisées pour réaliser ces œuvres, mise en lien avec le contexte culturel, permet de les replacer dans l'ensemble de l'œuvre de Füssli et de la tradition théorique et esthétique à laquelle il est redevable. Le choix de Spenser comme thématique à illustrer, ainsi que le rapport entre les images et le texte, y sont également abordés en mettant l'accent sur la représentation discordante des genres sexuels chez le poète et le peintre. Cette discordance donne lieu à l'hypothèse défendue dans ce mémoire selon laquelle les œuvres de Füssli, ayant pour sujets The Faerie Queene d'Edmund Spenser, sont des œuvres à sujets littéraires pour lesquelles l'artiste fait preuve d'invention et dans lesquelles il exprime ses sentiments face au monde où il vit. Il ne s'agit donc pas d'illustrations, puisque ce terme sous-tend la possibilité d'un respect strict au texte. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741-1825), The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser, ut pictura poesis, œuvre à sujet littéraire, illustration, invention, sublime, gothic, études genrées.

���In this thesis, I use modern concepts of feminism, gender performativity, and psychoanalysis as a means to understand female characters and authors of Renaissance England in a new way. In my first article, I analyze various texts and performances of Queen Elizabeth I, as well as texts of Renaissance female authors who are now slowly entering our modern canon ��� notably, Aemilia Lanyer. The second article is a feminist investigation of Britomart from Spenser's The Faerie Queene. In both pieces, I argue that these women (historical and fictional) broaden the definition of queer, and ultimately of feminism, as a whole. The goal of this thesis is to utilize published and visual records of early modern women writers and fictional characters, and apply a theoretical lens to such texts, in order to analyze these texts in a multi-faceted, contemporary fashion and to establish new modes of thought within the discourse of gender performativity, feminisms and psychoanalytical theory.<br>Graduation date: 2013

博士<br>國立臺灣大學<br>外國語文學研究所<br>99<br>In this dissertation, I endeavor to reread and reevaluate The Legend of Temperance in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, bringing to bear Lacan’s theories of the topological structure, the ethics of desire, and the subject of the unconscious to examine three related topics—allegory, ethics and subjectivity. In the second chapter, I combine Jon Whitman’s observations on the traditions of allegory comprising the compositional and the critical and interpretational, Walter Benjamin’s idea of the dialectical potential of allegory and Gordon Teskey’s further elaboration, and Lacan’s theorization of the topological structure, to suggest that Spenser displays three principles in his allegory of temperance: that allegory is interpretational, it is dialectical and it is topological. Spenser is therefore able to both compose and critique, both weave and unweave his own allegory and complicate the conceptual opposites and present their relations as non-oppositionally dialectical as is embodied by the Mobius structure. In the third chapter, Spenserian temperance is evaluated not so much from the frame of Aristotelian ethics, which suffers from the opposition between ethics and eros, as from the ethics of desire proposed by psychoanalysis—which resituates eros back into the domain of ethics and construes ethics as a structure of desire—and Shingu Kazushige’s elaboration on the objet a as the golden mean—which opens up the dimensions of irrational harmony and relation of eros and Agape—are more akin to Spenser’s presentation and critique of an ethics devoid of desire bodied forth by the knight of temperance, specifically in canto vii and canto xii. In the fourth chapter, the Renaissance faculty psychology and Lacan’s theories of the subject and the objet a are introduced, and Spenser’s various models of subjectivity, including Medina’s Castle, Alma’s House of Temperance, and Acrasia’s Bower of Bliss, are analyzed to figure out his conception of the ideal subject. Also, the ethical relation between Ich and Es, the subject and its unconscious desire, is highlighted to revaluate the subject’s predicament demonstrated by Guyon and Arthur in the parlor scene. In sum, this dissertation, as a mere point of departure for a real journey, aims to unveil the postmodern potential and concerns prefigured in Spenser’s poem, which still await full appreciation and further explorations.

The theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan concerning human psychic development provide a significant metastructure for interpreting the motivation of five major epic figures: Dante the pilgrim in La Divina Commedia, Britomart in Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and Satan, Eve, and Adam in Milton's Paradise Lost. Each of these psychodramas begins at the point Lacan has posited as the primal phase of all human psychic experience, which he has called the 'mirror stage,' located within the pre-verbal realm of the Imaginary. My reading of each poem begins with each poet's focus upon a mirror, either a literal mirror image, when Britomart sees Arthegall in Merlin's magic glass and when Eve gazes upon her reflection in the Edenic lake, or a 'mirroring' relationship, like Dante's with Beatrice, Satan's with God the Father, and Adam's with Eve, whereby the individual's sense of 'self' depends upon the positive responses of an 'other.' The illusion of the mirror stage is that a perfect harmony between self and other--usually between child and mother--is possible. To accept the impossibility of this basic human desire is to transcend the mirror and to find one's place as a mature adult in the real world of language, law, and authority that Lacan terms the Symbolic. The order or words, of speech, supersedes the infantile realm of visual images. The formal motif of the epic quest is portrayed in these three poems as a psychic journey either toward or away from the objective of psychic freedom from impossible desire, a freedom that can only be achieved through obedience to a higher authority: Dante's desire for Beatrice leads him to God and to his own identity as a poet; Britomart's quest for the mirror knight teaches her that she cannot escape her destiny as woman; and Satan's descent into Hell reveals the tragic consequences of the psychotic's refusal to repress his desire for power, while Adam and Eve are freed from the narcissistic self-absorption that characterizes their paradise when they submit to God's will. The Lacanian metastructure thus provides a fruitful method for 'deciphering' the psychological signification of the poetry of Dante, Spenser, and Milton<br>acase@tulane.edu

碩士<br>國立政治大學<br>英國語文學系<br>84<br>This thesis aims at explaining how Spenser builds his love story of Artegall and Britomart as a perfect love model for all his readers in the real world to follow. The thesis first introduces how the Christian theory of love is modeled on the perfect love relation between God and human beings and how Spenser emulates that divine model and creates a pair of perfect human lovers. By his emulation of the divine model, he not only breaks down the middle wall between the perfect and the human, but also shapes his characters as both allegorical and realistic. Besides, the thesis also explains how the circular relationship between the Christian theory of love and its practice renders Spenser's artistic love model to have a circular relatioinship with theChristian love theory, too. Second, the argument of the thesis follows closely the development of Artegall and Britomart's relationship and divides it into three phases: their relationship as lovers, as husband and wife, as friends. In all the three phases, the love story has a circular relationship with the Christian theory oflove. It reflects the glory of a divine love model, explains the mystery of Christian love, and is justified of its seeming defects by the harshness andother-worldliness of the divine love. By laying bare of the circularrelationship between Spenser's love story and the Christian theory of love, thethesis finally comes to unravel Spenser's art of inviting the readers toperform chastity that human beings in Christian theory is supposed perform. Thethesis concludes by showing how the circular argument encourages the readers to join in Artegall and Britomart's experience and to practice their belief about love rather than simply to read it.

The Faerie Queene is not a dream-poem (Introduction, Section 1). Yet dream-theory (oneirocriticism) can be applied to all texts (oneiropoetic), provided that the subordination of literature to psychology (or vice-versa) is avoided (Section 2). The purpose of this essay (Section 3) is to correlate Freudian dream-structures with literary structures, exemplify the correlations with Spenserian passages, and to build a total model for the interpretation of rhetoric in terms of dream-theory. The result, christened 'oneiropoetic,' employs classical rhetoric and poetics, as known in the Renaissance and earlier, and also uses later formulations by Tynianov, Bakhtin, Todorov, Genette, Derrida and others. Section 4 summarizes Freud's dream-theory in relation to his later ego-psychology. The essay is divided into fifty-two dream:literature isomorphs, disposed in four parts of three chapters each. Freudian theory is updated with the help of the language-centered formulations of Roman Jakobson and Jacques Lacan, among others Part I, 'The Censor: Viewpoint,' discusses 'aesthetic distance' versus dream-depersonalization; nightmares and punishment dreams; day-residues; and the 'Aristotelian' fancy in Spenser (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 discusses parody and paramnesia; irony; and absurdity. Chapter 3 examines genre theory as exclusions of The Censor, and equates literary fragmentation of time with dream-time. Part II, 'Condensation: Symbol,' discusses visual images or 'filming' in terms of literary pictorialism (Chapter 4). 'Escape' literature, including romance narrative in some of its aspects, is isomorphized to Freud's 'family romance,' and certain blazons to hysterical symptoms (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 analyzes such Condensations as algebraic names, the dragon-hermaphrodite, and Faeryland itself. Part III, 'Displacement: Allegory,' relates Freudian associationism to Renaissance hidden meaning (Chapter 7). Spenserian entrelaced allegory is compared to the homologous series of dreams of a single night (Chapter 8). Chapter 9 finds in Spenserian characterization a Galenesque imagery of humours isomorphic to Freudian libidinal 'zones.' The last Part, 'Secondary Revision: The Audience,' discusses the 'finish' of the text-surface, and also persona layers (Chapter 10). Chapters 11 and 12 correlate Transference in Freud with mediation in Spenser<br>acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation argues that in Renaissance discourses of the body the body is progressively evacuated of the spirit, as we move from texts of the late Medieval period to texts of the Jacobean period. Where New Historicists have suggested that the practice of “self-fashioning,” which dictates behaviour, speech and dress, takes place in the Renaissance, I argue that there was a material self-fashioning of the body occurring simultaneously. Such corporeal fashioning, motivated by desire for physical improvement, frustrates the extent to which the soul shapes the body. My Introduction lays theoretical and historical groundwork, situating the body/soul relationship in relation to Christian theology, Senecan-Stoicism, Epicureanism and philosophical materialism. Discourses of artistic creation, informed by neo-Platonism, also influence corporeal fashioning in that the most radical bodily modifications are imagined through literature, where artificers are often privileged as creators. Chapter One examines “The Miracle of the Black Leg,” a transplant, by the doctor-Saints Cosmas and Damian, of a Moor’s black leg to a white Sacristan, whose gangrenous leg is amputated. In written and pictorial representations Cosmas and Damian, initially figured as Saints, are later presented as doctors who perform a medical procedure. Alongside the doctors’ increasing agency, the black leg itself, inflected by Renaissance notions of Moors and Moorishness, troubles the soul’s immanence in the body. Chapter Two examines Elizabeth I’s practices of bodily fashioning through her wigs, dentures and cosmetics. I argue that Elizabeth’s symbolic value, which includes components of monarchical rule, as well as attitudes toward female beauty, is always already pre-empted by her body. In Book III of The Faerie Queene, moreover, Edmund Spenser writes an alternative history of England through Britomart’s body to provide an heir to Elizabeth’s otherwise heirless throne. Chapters Three and Four perform close readings of Book II of The Faerie Queene, Thomas Tomkis’s Lingua, Thomas Middleton’s The Maiden’s Tragedy and Revenger’s Tragedy, and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. I argue that both the allegorical and theatrical modes demand a level of materialism that paradoxically makes the body the centre of attention, and anticipates Cartesian mechanistic dualism.<br>Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-25 22:59:31.67