Spenserian Protestantism and the Renaissance: Heroism in The Faerie Queene Part 4/4

IV.  Conclusion: The Christian Heroism of Books V and VI

In Books V and VI Spenser uses his own brand of Protestantism to generate religious invocations in an unlikely pair of Christian heroes: the stern disciplinary and Knight of Justice, Arthegall, and the gentle Knight of Courtesy, Calidore. Although at one point in his quest Calidore forsakes the hard heroic life for the ease and tranquility of the pastoral one, but comes back around, though it takes the shepherd, Colin Clout, to bring him back. In Arthegal, we find someone who is burdened with a heavy task of upholding a form of justice that can only be carried out through an equitable assessment of each situation itself. Interestingly, Arthegal is often seen in the light of a figure of justice from the book of Revelations, not least because Book V contains most of the remaining 18 of 60 citations of Revelations (after Book I’s 42) in The Faerie Queene. [1] Arthegal himself, then, the knight educated by Astrae, can be seen as the personification of God’s justice on earth, a heroic Christian Everyman.

Calidore, coming after Arthegal and carrying his torch, is a heroic too, in the unique Spenserian protestant sense, for tempers Arthegal’s death sentences by mercy and forgiveness. That is not to say that he allows evildoers to walk all over him, since he only issues forgiveness after he has conveyed the lesson: be courteous to those in others living within your society. 

It is clear that Calidore’s teachings of courtesy and forgiveness are not for everyone, especially catholic. Spenser, resoundingly anti-Catholic, makes this known in particular in his attitude towards images and iconoclasm. Though there are vestiges of “traditional religion”, such as forms of worship used in England for centuries, from festivals at feast days to parish sponsorships of altars, Spenser’s religious affiliation are tied closest to a form a radical Protestantism most often associated with Puritanism. That is not to say that Spenser only wants to tell the what to think, in terms of black and white, only to provide a gloss on Elizabethan religions, and how two very different knights, Arthegal and Calidor, are still ultimately Christian heroes in their pursuit of Justice and Courtesy, respectively.

In Books V and VI Spenser’s religious affiliation is pervasive in almost every action that Arthegal and Calidore take. But the last two Books (and the Mutability Cantos) of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene ultimately stimulate the reader’s imagination with the fantastical tales of two Christian heroes and justice and forgiveness. They perform their tasks and duties with excessive perseverance, excessive fervor, and an excessive desire to achieve a code of heroic conduct that would last forever, whether or not they succeed. Almost two hundred years after Spenser’s death, William Blake, a great admirer of Spenser who even wrote a 54 line poem in six Spenserian stanzas called An Imitation of Spenser once said “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” And that goes for The Faerie Queene too.

Word Count: 3523

Appendix: References and Further Reading

Greenblatt, Stephen "Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare". “Chapter Four: To Fashion a Gentleman”. 167-192. Princeton University Press (2010): 171-77. Print.

Hadfield, Andrew, ed. Edmund Spenser, “The Sacred Hunger of Ambitions Minds: Spenser’s Savage Religion”. Addison Wesley Longman Limited. Edinburgh Gate, UK, 1996. Print.

Hamilton, A.C. ed. The Spenser Encyclopedia. University of Toronto Press, Toronto. 1990.

Heale, Elizabeth. The Faerie Queene: A Reader’s Guide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997. Print.

Homer, Robert Fagles, and Bernard Knox. The Odyssey. New York: Viking, 1996. Print.

Mallette, Richard. Spenser and the Discourses of Reformation. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1997. Print.

McCabe, Richard, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Edmund Spenser. McEachern, Claire, “Spenser and Religion”. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 2010. pp. 30-48. Print.

McCabe, Richard, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Edmund Spenser. Borris, Kenneth, “Allegory, Emblem, and Symbol”. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 2010. pp. 437-462

McCabe, Richard, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Edmund Spenser. Kaske, V. Carol, “Spenser and the Bible”. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 2010. pp. 485-503. Print.

Spenser, Edmund, A. C. Hamilton, Hiroshi Yamashita, and Toshiyuki Suzuki. The Faerie Qveene. Books I-III. Print.

Virgil, and Sowerby, Robin. The Aeneid. [S.l.]: Longman, 1984. Print.

West, Michael. “Spenser and the Renaissance Ideal of Christian Heroism”. Modern Language Associate, PMLA, Vol. 88, No 5, October 1973, pp. 1013-1032. Accessed on December 10, 2013, www.jstor.org/stable/461636. Web.

Albright, Evelyn May. “Spenser’s Cosmic Philosophy and His Religion”. Modern Language Associate, PMLA, Vol. 88, No 5, October 1973, pp. 1013-1032. Accessed on December 10, 2013, www.jstor.org/stable/457411 Web.

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[1] Kaske, “Spenser and the Bible, p. 486.

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[1] Kaske, “Spenser and the Bible, p. 486.

Spenserian Protestantism and the Renaissance: Heroism in The Faerie Queene Part 3/4

III.  Passing the Torch: Book 6

In Book 6, the torch is passed. The Knight of Courtesy, Calidore, opens the Book by saying to Arthegal “where ye ended haue” says Calidore, “now I begin” (vi. i.6). Calidore is the gentle hero, in pursuit of the Blatant Beast left at large by Arthegal at the end of Book V. Book VI starts our right away with Arthegall meeting Calidore, justice meeting courtesy, perhaps the first episode in all of the Faerie Queen in which two Knights meet one another and do not immediately want to fight. The significance of this episode is that not only do they recognize each other, but, in essence, the torch is passed and the ideal of the Christian Hero begins to be molded from a chosen Christian Everyman for the unenviable task of implementing a strict code of justice tempered with equity (for which the native populations often respond angrily) to the hero of a Christian knight who is both chivalric and courteous (for which the population responds positively.[1]   But instead of executions in the name of justice, Calidore dispenses mercy, often in the form of sermons throughout Book VI. In one instance, he comes across a night, Crudor who snatched the beloved lady of the squire Calidore tries to help. They struggle until finally Calidore strikes Crudor with his sword. Calidore ultimately issue mercy after instructing Crudor about proper courtesy:

“So all returning to the Castle glad,

            Most ioyfully she them did entertaine,

            Where goodly glee and feast to them she made,

            To shew her thankefull mind and meaning faine,

            By all the meanes she mote it best explaine:

            And after all, vnto Sir Calidore,

            She freely gaue that Castle for his paine.

            And her selfe bound to him for euermore; 

So wondrously now chaung’d, from that she afore (VI. i.46)

At this point, everyone immediately rejoices and Calidore is established a hero from the onset.  But not before he he exhorts Crudor to eschew “pride and cruelness” and “himself…to subdew” because “all flesh is frayle” and “subiect to fortunes chance”, culminating in Calidore issuing one of the most aspired Christian virtues, forgiveness.[2]

In another episode, after rescuing Pastorella from the brigands, the chivalric Calidore safely returns her to her biological parents in canto xii, coming out a hero after having neglected his quest to kill the Blatant Beast by staying and ultimately regretting to leave the pastoral calm and serenity of Mount Acidale.  Immediately after, Calidore finally catches up to the Blatant Beast and uses only his shield and an iron muzzle to bind its mouth.

“Yet greatly did the Beast repine at those,

            Straunge bands, whose like till then he neure bore,

            Ne euer any dusrst till then impose,

            And chauffed inly, seeing now no more,

            Him liberty was left aloud to rore:

            Yet durst he not draw backe;

            The proued power of noble Calidore,

            But trembled vnderneath his mighty hand, 

And like a fearfull dog him followed through the land (VI. xii.36)

Here he has the monster in chains, having captured the Beast after he had broken into a church and destroyed the cloister and the altar. The poet then laments that, even though the monster is now in chains, he will soon break free of his bonds and escape at liberty, but not before the people through all the land rejoiced and welcomed Calidore as their savior and hero.

Word Count: 585

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[1] Heale, The Faerie Queene: A Reader’s Guide, 1997, pp. 23-35.

[2] Kaske, “Spenser and the Bible, pp. 485-487.

Spenserian Protestantism and the Renaissance: Heroism in The Faerie Queene Part 2/4

II.  Oh How Unlike the Place From Whence They Fell!: Book V

In a time of civil unrest and political upheaval a “hero” is one who protects from both internal and external threats. Considering the historical circumstances in Ireland and England of the disturbance caused by the Counter-Reformation—beginning with the council of Trent (1545-1563) and ending at the close of the Thirty Years’ War (1648), Arthegal is such a hero.[1] Arthegal is a protector against both internal and external threats. For example, he mercilessly executes those who practice idolatry and those who destroy any form of “protestant” church property. “Protestant” can be loosely interpreted here because it must be taken in the context of Spenser’s political reality. Elizabeth, as chief architect of a nation of diverse religious views, had to delegate work of maintaining law and order to keep her nation together. In Arthegal, harsh punishments issued through him and carried out by his fervent muscle, Taulus, constitute Elizabethan acts of uniformity for the sole purpose of maintaining law while allowing for a diversity of beliefs. This tolerance was only extended to variants of Protestant beliefs, such as Lutheranism, Calvinism, Puritanism, not to Catholics.[2] In this sense, Arthegall represents the Christian Everyman serving Gloriana’s call to wipe out all the injustice that has infected both her people and the nature of her land. His actions are therefore heroic, aiming to impose Gloriana’s right to rule as Spenser saw it. Two key episodes illustrate Arthegal’s heroism: the killing of the false prophet, the giant, and the brutal execution of Grantoro, or the “great wrong.”

The giant is pride. In Book I, Spenser resoundingly advocates for the outright execution of pride by having Redcrosse kill Orgoglio, but only after establishing Orgoglio is linked with Duessa through pride, for Duessa is to Mary Tudor as Orgoglio is to Philip of Spain, both patrons of the Catholic church, which, for Spenser had been irrevocably corrupted by pride.[3] In the giant, a similar evil and pervasive pride is manifested. When Arthegal and Taulus come across giant preaching a sermon literally on a mound to subjects gathering at his feet, a deep philosophical discourse follows on equity, or how to assess each individual case and in what light, and redistribution of wealth. The Giant rejects “the Aristotlean principle of proportionate distribution because he speaks for the many-headed multitude, reducing all things “unto equality.” Arthegal opposes this idea because it is a disruption of God’s system of distribution as advocated by Elizabeth herself. He raises the “counter-argument that wing, light, and right or wrong cannot be quantified and redistributed”. After persuasion fails to win over the giant, force is used as a last resort. At that point, Taulus then “shouldred [the giant] from off the higher ground | And down the rock him throwing in the sea him drouned, (V.ii.49.7-9).  Arthegal is a Christian hero, not least because he ensures that Elizabeth’s societal order is upheld, even though the natives to whom the giant are preaching become furious. Interestingly, this episode also highlights Arthegal’s heroism because the giant’s death is compared to another death Bible, in the episode of Antiochus, who “thought he might… weigh the hie mountains in ye balance, was now cast on the ground…declaring vnto all the manifest power of God’ (2 Macc. 9.7-8).

In the last canto of Book V, Arthegal encounters the “great wrong,” Grantoro. Grantoro has held the lady Irena as his captive and kept the salvage people mesmerized under his spell. It is only through Arthegal’s divine calling to implement an equitable justice here that finally ends the Grantoro’s reign of terror:

 “Which when the people round about him saw,

            They shouted al for joy of his success,

            Glad to be quit from that proud Tyrants awe,

            Which with strong power did them long time oppresse;

            And running all the greedie joyfulnesse

            To faire Irena, at her feet did fall,

            And her adored with due humblenesse,

            As their true Liege and Princess natural;  

And eke her champions glorie sounded ouer all.” (V. xii.24)

Only after Arthegall slays Grantorto, do the salvage people realize that Irena is the one to whom they owe allegiance. Arthegall slaying of Grantorto effectively rescues the “heritage” and “franchisement” that Grantorto had stolen as his to claim.[4] Irena is thus once again their legitimate ruler, rescued by a battered hero, because she is”liege”. She is a loyal subject of Elizabeth, even perhaps an emblematic of her rule of law.  In this episode, Grantoro represents one who aims to restore Catholicism in Ireland, which, for Protestants, was an accursed threat.[5] Grantoro’s enterprise, then can be seen as a religious one when taken in context with Spenser’s life in Ireland, for to the English Protestant of the Elizabethan church, Grantoro stands for the Spanish monarchy and papal authorities seeking to help the natives in Ireland overthrow Gloriana, while Arthegal is the heroic Christian Everyman chosen to delegate justice against the forces of the papal banner.

Word Count: 870

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[1] Hamilton, The Spenser Encyclopedia, pp. 45-49.

[2] Hadfield, Andre, “Spenser’s Savage Religion,” 1997. pp. 134-137.

[3] Mallette, Spenser and the Discourses of Reformation, 1997 pp. 56-65.

[4] Hamilton, Spenser Encyclopedia, pp. 67-75 and McEachern, “Spenser and Religion,” pp. 34-36.

[5]Hadfield, Spenser’s Savage Religion, pp. 184-185.

Spenserian Protestantism and the Renaissance: (Christian) Heroism in The Faerie Queene Part 1/4

Professor Leah Whittington

Paper #2: Term Paper, The Faerie Queene

By Bledar Blake Zenuni, December 11, 2013

Spenserian Protestantism and the Renaissance:

Heroism in The Faerie Queene

Religious Elements in Spenser’s Ontology of Christian Heroism in Books V and VI

English 90lw: Spenser’s Faerie Queene and the Renaissance Imagination

Harvard University, Fall 2013

Table of Contents

I.  The English Protestant of the Renaissance: Heroism in The Faerie Queen    ................................ 5

II.  Oh How Unlike the Place From Whence They Fell!: Book V  .................................................... 7

III.  Passing the Torch: Book VI........................................................................................................ 10

IV.  Conclusion: The Christian Heroism of Books V and VI.......................................................... 12

Appendix: References and FurtherReading..................................................................................... 14

Acknowledgements

·         My professor, Leah Whittington, who answered all of my queries patiently and who showed me the joy of reading Edmund Spenser for one’s soul and mind.

·         My classmates in English 90lw, who provided critical insight during discussions and who helped me learn how be a better thinker.

“Both read the bible day and night,

but thou read’st black where I read white”

—    William Blake, The Everlasting Gospel,

Sec. 4, Verse 13-14, 181

—William Blake, “Portrait of Edmund Spenser”, ca. 1800-1803.

I.  The English Protestant of the Renaissance: Heroism in The Faerie Queen

Published for the first time in 1596, the second half of The Faerie Queene employs certain details of narrative structure already noted in Books I and II, creating a sense of continuity and pedagogy throughout Spenser’s “endlesse worke”. For example, Spenser introduces the motif of a quest, assigned by the Faerie Queene, in the first canto of Book V: Arthegall must rescue the lady Eirena from Grantorto and recover her heritage, just as Redcrosse must slay the dragon of sin and rescue Una’s homeland.[1] In Book VI, a transition from Book V is made by bringing Arthegall together with Calidore in stanza 4 of the first canto. For Spenser, the retention of narrative and structure from the first half of The Faerie Queene function to uphold the didactic aim of his work’s intent: “the general end therefore of all the booke,” he wrote to Sir Walter Raleigh sometime earlier in 1590, “is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline. His work, Spenser explains, is “coloured with an historicall fiction,” because that is what will enthrall, entertain, and, ultimately, help educate his audience—probably only the nobility in the Elizabethan court but ideally all of Gloriana’s subjects.[2] As works of fiction, enriched through its poetry, Books V and VI are meant to both entertain readers—by its fantastical characters and its aesthetic poetry—and serve as a means to educate. In Books V and VI, then, one is yet again confronted with Spenser’s concept of “fashioning a gentleman”. Although this still raises difficult political and moral questions, (as does the question ‘what does it mean to be a nobleman?’), it asks one to consider what can be learned through poetry. One such consideration is the challenging and important idea of “heroism” as emblematic of Arthegall and Calidore, the chief protagonists of Books V and VI respectively. Specifically, one wonders what does it mean for Arthegall and Calidore to be “heroes” and how, if at all, is that influenced by Spenser’s religious affiliation?

It is difficult to preciously pinpoint Spenser’s exact religious affiliation, and, without any of Spenser’s own theological writings, one is left with only a few of Spenser’s poems and The Faerie Queene as evidence of doctrinal clues. Nonetheless, most critics agree that there is no doubt that Spenser favored a spiritual order—a subscribed system of various institutional forms can take in society—that was specifically Protestant.[3] As an English Protestant of the Renaissance, Spenser was committed to the separation of the English Church from the Roman Catholic Church, conditioning the religious aspects of Books V and VI of The Faerie Queen on the nature of the Elizabethan Church itself. One way in which religious elements manifest themselves in Books V and VI is Spenser’s ontology of heroism. Heroism in Books V and VI takes on a distinct form, in that it is a Christian heroism, aspiring to create an ideal figure in a time of renaissance by fusing a code of Elizabethan justice and a code of courtesy found in the most benevolent of knights. To take the most obvious allegorical examples, Book V is dedicated to the Knight of Justice, or Arthegall, a sort of Christian Everyman delegated with the unenviable task of implementing such a strict form of justice, that it is comparable only to that found in Revelations Book VI is dedicated to the Knight of Courtesy, or Calidore, who is keen on forgiveness and mercy at every turn, but only after instructing those he pardons on the proper exhibition of courtesy. In Books V and VI, Spenser’s unique Protestantism influences the behavior of the two knights, for it is through a religious invocation that Arthegall is able to subdue both the giant and Grantorto, and Calidore is able to break free from his heedless idleness in the pastoral countryside so that he can fulfill his quest and defeat the Blatant Beast. Spenser’s unique protestant religious elements reveal the heroism of Arthegall and Calidore, but in startling different ways In Book V, the poet reasons that Arthegal, as a good Christian Everyman, has been delegated by the divine to enforce strict justice tempered with proportionate equity, ultimately marking him worthy of being heroic within the Elizabethan societal framework of law and order. In Book VI, Arthegal effectively passes the torch to Calidore, whose religious invocation leads him down a path of courtesy and mercy, marking him a popular and welcome hero reminiscent of a pre-Elizabethan chivalric age.  

Word Count: 998

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[1] For further reference on narrative and structure in The Faerie Queene, See Richard, Spenser and the Discourses of Reformation. 1997, p. 15.

[2] Spenser, Edmund, A. C. Hamilton, Hiroshi Yamashita, and Toshiyuki Suzuki. The Faerie Qveene. "Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh”, pp. 713-718.

[3] Original idea attributed to McEachern, Spenser and Religion, pp. 30-48.