Although we are far removed from the height of the Renaissance, we are still eager to learn more because we are continually confounded by the society, politics, and deeply religious sentiments of the time period. This is especially important when attempting to dissect The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. Spenser discusses the role of power and uses order and chaos as guiding forces throughout the many books in this poem. While they are two ends of a spectrum, chaos and order help us to understand the different roles that power can play in a story. The Faerie Queene serves as an ode to Queen Elizabeth I while also glorifying Protestantism to only make Catholicism appear evil. Ultimately I will show that Spenser uses Queen Elizabeth I’s rule to deify her as a monarch, solidify order despite chaos, and promote Protestantism. In this way we can see Spenser as a guide throughout The Faerie Queene to better understand the Renaissance viewpoint of chaos and order in relation to Protestantism and Catholicism. By this we can attribute chaos to Catholicism and order to Protestantism. However, there are several reasons why Spenser does this, which will be further explored in order to understand why his devotion to Elizabeth I plays a role into the greater scheme of his work. Furthermore, this structure will hopefully yield insight into what makes chaos and order more intertwined than opposing forces on a scale.
In Book II of The Faerie Queene we can see Spenser’s push toward living a temperate life, because it is the main point of focus. Yet, like many things in life, there is not always one answer or side to choose. One parallel comes in the form of chaos versus order, as chaos would be intemperate and order would be temperate. Spenser is promoting order via living a temperate life because the two seem intertwined. Acrasia is an example of one who leads an intemperate life and what surrounds her, but chaos. Similarly, in terms of the order seen in Book II, Canto IX, we are in the House of Temperance with Guyon and Alma as he professes his adoration for the Faerie Queene. He professes that:
She is the mighty Queene of Faerie,
Whose faire retrait I in my shield do beare;
She is the flowre of grace and chastitie,
Throughout the world renowmed far and neare,
My liefe, my liege, my Soueraigne, my deare,
Whose glory shineth as the morning starre,
And with her light the earth enlumines cleare;
Far reach her mercies, and her prayses farre,
As well in state of peace, as puissaunce in warre. (Book II, Canto IX, 4)
In the House of Temperance, Guyon mentions just how fair and temperate the Queene truly is. She is known far and wide, shines like the morning star, and is just as effective in peace as in war. Yet there is an overarching parallel to Spenser and Queen Elizabeth I that must be addressed. A. Bartlett Giamatti makes incredibly relevant and apt assertions about Elizabeth I’s life in the essay “A Prince And Her Poet.” In accordance with The Faerie Queene, Giamatti relates Elizabeth I to Gloriana because “all the roles she played were Gloriana, the single, sole and abiding fountainhead and goal of Unity” (Giamatti 148). In a less flattering portrayal her “people’s hunger for unity became the celestial bargain: they would believe she embodied their ideal and submit, if she would deny everything except their need and thereby weld them together” (Giamatti 148). Elizabeth I represented a unifying force for the rather divided people of her time and yet it is no wonder why Spenser aims to deify her. Giamatti also notes, “she is as much the object of his poem as she is the subject” (Giammatti 151). Spenser aims to show his devotion to the Queen in a way that would grant favor but also further his argument on the importance of Protestantism over Catholicism.
Yet it is also necessary to formulate some understanding of Edmund Spenser’s life before attempting to further tackle the debate of Protestantism over Catholicism. As a tremendous poet and man of his time there are countless records of Spenser’s life, however Andrew Hadfield is extremely well-versed in Spenser’s life and can better explain the pertinent points to allow for a better glimpse into Renaissance society. Hadfield’s biography, entitled Edmund Spenser: A Life begins with an introduction that calls upon Irena Backus’ “study of life writing in Reformation Europe” in which she says that “most lives written in sixteenth-century Europe has a didactic religious purpose” (Hadfield 19). Religion still had a great hold on much of the writing, even when it came to writing about one’s life. This means that religion has an overarching tone much above all else in life.
Even more so, Hadfield questions Spenser’s role as a Catholic sympathizer due to his use of Christian elements such as holy water (Hadfield 134). Yet he comes to more of the resolution that much of his life is shrouded in mystery and that these elements should not be taken in the wrong context. Much of his life is truly dictated and understood by looking to his poetry for guidance. Spenser’s work seems to even have angered King James with the second edition of The Faerie Queene due to the representation of his mother, Mary Stuart, as Duessa (Hadfield 333). Yet what is interesting to note is that a mere poet can have such an impact on the ruler of a nation. Although Spenser ultimately did not return to court and lived out the remainder of his life in Ireland, he still rattled the king enough to make an impact. This demonstrates the power of Spenser’s skills, not only as a poet, but also as a man living in the Renaissance.
To be modeled after Duessa would most likely have been an incredibly negative role that no one, especially in the Renaissance, would have wanted. She is the embodiment of intemperance as she schemes away in her Bower of Bliss. It is also a bold accusation to compare Duessa to King James’ mother, but serves as a lesser remark when compared to the importance of what The Faerie Queene is trying to say as a whole. Gerhardt Schuette’s essay, “Edmund Spenser’s Anti-Catholicism: Duessa’s Part in it All,” questions the role of Duessa and the poem to better illuminate “the threat of Catholicism to the English people” (Schuette 8). Duessa’s very name means duplicity as made apparent by Schuette, but she also serves as the antithesis to Una who represents unity. Again, this is a marker for the two sides of the spectrum as Duessa represents chaos whereas Una represents order. Pushing this a bit further we can see that there are religious elements to further complicate this binary.
If we go along with Schuette’s thinking, then it becomes more known that this is all merely allegorical work to better explain the difference between the Protestant faith and the Catholic faith. However, this also complicates the view that Hadfield had about Spenser being a Catholic sympathizer because of his use of Christian elements. On a larger scale, these elements appear to be minor when looking at the true cause of his writing, which is to condemn or at least warn the people about the Catholic Church. While it is possible to look into the minor details that surround Duessa it would also do nothing to reify the possibility of her not being evil. Spenser has carefully designed her to represent the faultiness of living that type of intemperate lifestyle. This idea is also further cemented with somewhat obvious connections to Queen Elizabeth I and the Faerie Queene. The Faerie Queene and all of her doings ultimately represent the power of Protestantism whereas Duessa’s duplicitous nature does nothing to compliment Catholicism. Schuette asserts that although Book II is not about holiness, “Duessa continues to represent what Spenser has previously attributed to her in Book I, and therefore continues to stand as a primary allegory for the Catholic Church” (Schuette 6). Spenser’s focus is to give praise to Elizabeth I for her triumph over Mary Stuart and Catholicism.
In this context Queen Elizabeth I represents the order that Spenser seeks throughout this work. The talk of things on a spectrum works well here because a great deal of the characters and places revolve around being attached to one side or the other. Although not everything can be simplified to that mere fact, there are many that can be. Duessa and Archimago serve to represent chaos as they strive for turmoil whenever it can be achieved whereas The Faerie Queene and Guyon serve to represent order. Guyon admires her power and rule, so much so that it would seem that he serves as a possible representation of Spenser himself. Spenser’s feelings toward Queen Elizabeth are seemingly mimicked by Guyon’s feelings for the Faerie Queene in Book II, Canto II:
To her I homage and my seruice owe,
In number of the noblest knights on ground,
Mongst whom on me she deigned to bestowe
Order of Maydenhead, the most renownd,
That may this day in all the world be found:
An yearely solemne feast she wontes to make
The day that first doth lead the yeare around;
To which all knights of worth and courage bold
Resort, to heare of straunge aduentures to be told. (Book II, Canto II, 42)
A move such as this shows support and serves as an ode to Queen Elizabeth I’s rule while also favoring well for Spenser. In a time such as the Renaissance, everything had to be politically motivated to ensure favor in court. In this example seen in Book II, Canto II, Guyon professes his services to the Queene. Similarly, just as Guyon has a task, Spenser takes upon his own to further solidify his positive sentiments toward Protestantism.
Spenser also had to create strict separations between what promoted order versus what promoted chaos, which can be seen in the imaginary gardens throughout The Faerie Queene. Jeffrey Theis’ essay, “Literature And The Renaissance Garden from Elizabeth I to Charles II: England’s Paradise” further explains these opposites with the Bower of Bliss and Gardens of Adonis. Theis discusses “the engagement with sexual politics and Elizabeth I” to be quite clear when looking at the imaginary vs. the real (Theis 127).
Furthermore, Theis makes mention of Amy Tigner’s approach to understanding the gardens of Acrasia and Venus by saying that they are both inspired by Queen Elizabeth I. He goes on to say, “for Spenser and his contemporaries, the garden site allows one to represent both the mortal, corrupted body and the body’s potential for regeneration” (Theis 128). Although Theis does not seem to agree with other critics, it is necessary to say that some “cast [the gardens] as polar opposites on the female sexuality spectrum—dangerous and unfruitful in Acrasia’s garden, and fertile and nurturing in Venus’ garden” (Theis 127).
The debate as to whether these gardens are similar or different becomes a difficult task to undertake and something in which many scholars do not agree upon. Yet both thoughts can be likened to the sides of chaos and order. Acrasia’s garden does not foster a nurturing side, which makes it chaotic whereas the other has more order. After all, if we look back to an earlier point, Acrasia serves to act as Mary Stuart who represents Catholicism and all that is wrong with it. Yet from the other side of the spectrum, as previously mentioned, Elizabeth I is the embodiment of the Faerie Queene so she too represents Protestantism and all that is needed for it to flourish. Perhaps this is Spenser’s way of creating differences, both positive and negative, but nonetheless attributing it all back to Elizabeth I and the power that she wields. Once again Elizabeth I becomes the subject and object as “she allowed her people to deify her in so many guises in order that she might be both source and instrument of power—a Phoenix, self-generating, self-absorbed, unique, mysterious, eternal” (Giamatti 148). Yet from the physical standpoint these two gardens represent the two abilities that the body has, to be corrupted and to be regenerated, both on opposite sides of the spectrum. Each can be attached to this spectrum of chaos and order because they are similar yet different.
However, Joseph Campana also reworks this idea in his book The Pain of Reformation: Spenser, Vulnerability, and the Ethics of Masculinity where he questions Spenser’s motivations for writing The Faerie Queene. In the introduction Campana says, “we must examine what effect Spenser’s interest in an ethics and aesthetics of vulnerability might have on how we understand a wide range of phenomena” (Campana 3). This includes the Protestant Reformation, the idea of a nationalistic epic, and the often-unexamined varieties of masculinity on which such notions depend (Campana 3). We can come to the realization that perhaps Spenser’s point for writing this poem is more involved than previously thought. Perhaps at a fundamental level, vulnerability is what drives this poem forward due to “the complex landscape of the post-Reformation” (Campana 4). From this standpoint there is still the complex relationship of chaos and order to consider, but there is also an anxious tone to the time period. According to Campana vulnerability and masculinity are related to one another because, to Spenser, one needed to be reformed to allow for the other to exist. He says that “masculinity must be reformed to admit the possibility of vulnerability,” which perhaps explains the role of Guyon and to that extent Arthur. These two characters, while ‘manly,’ are not exempt to illness, fatigue, or even temptation (Campana 5) He seems to be saying that although many other things are on a spectrum, these two, masculinity and vulnerability, are not two things that should be far apart.
Furthermore, “for Spenser, paradox, complexity, and controlled ambiguity were the perfect tools for interrogating virtue and reflecting on the relationship between masculinity and ethics embedded in the idea of the heroic” (Campana 8). The subject of male heroism is another interesting interjection because it takes away from the power of Queen Elizabeth I. Although that might not be the intention, as Robin Headlem Wells points out, “for the Renaissance, the heroic ideal is essentially masculine” (Campana 8). It would appear that Spenser attempts to redefine this masculine heroism without even realizing it. Although this was the popular construction of the time, their leader was also a woman as in the poem as well. The knights, such as Guyon, become mere pawns compared to the power of the Faerie Queene and Acrasia.
Going back to this point of a spectrum, it would appear that there was, in the Renaissance, still a separation of masculine power versus feminine power. While in society the men were supposed to have this heroic nature to them, Spenser, through Campana’s research, searches for a way to redefine this notion of power. Perhaps they were contradictory at the time, however from the vantage point of today’s time period, we can say that this is a very modern attempt to possibly redefine gender roles. That is why Guyon faithfully serves the Faerie Queene, as he uses his masculinity to face opponents but is also vulnerable to them and to the power that the Queene has over him. Giamatti mentions Elizabeth I again by saying that, “the single, overwhelming fact of her life was that she was a woman” but “by the alchemy of her political genius, she transmuted into seemingly inexhaustible strength a fact her contemporaries regarded as a fatally debilitating weakness” (Giamatti 149). In this way her vulnerability is reworked to counter that of a male contemporary, as she used what was against her to her advantage. There are so many interesting components at play here that it complicates the overarching point of chaos versus order seen throughout the poem. However, the anxiety felt throughout and after the Protestant Reformation left England in a very vulnerable state, which this poem helps to solidify Spenser’s aim for Protestant rule over Catholicism.
The issue of vulnerability and masculinity plays into the concept of chaos and order, but also coincides “with the problem of the relationship between life and religious belief, to think through opportunities and danger living in a post-Reformation world” (Hadfield 21). This is to say that Spenser struggled in doing so because he “had to try to invent a series of traditions [and] establish an institutional framework for religious practice” (Hadfield 21). Spenser attempts to do just that throughout Book II because as it is so correctly noted, deals with Temperance and what that ultimately means. Although his aim was to promote the importance of the Protestant faith, Andrew Hadfield, in his essay “Spenser And Religion—Yet Again,” calls upon his Calvinist roots. Spenser was exposed to such ideas from early childhood due to the deeply religious time period and easy accessibility to Calvinist writings. Hadfield also discusses Calvin’s thoughts about predestination and soteriology, “which emphasizes the depravity of man and the need for intervention of God’s grace to save humankind from its willing infection with sin” (Hadfield 24).
So although we are merely human, Spenser aims to lift us up from this chaos to prove that there is a higher power and a monarch leading the way. In Book II, Canto IX, we are in the House of Temperance, which serves as the embodiment of what Spenser has envisioned up until now. Guyon, who ultimately serves the Faerie Queene, but will also do his best to preserve the sanctity of temperance, guards the house. In real life we can equate Spenser to Guyon as he is serving Queen Elizabeth I by preserving the sanctity of Protestantism in contrast to the intemperate Catholicism. Once again, Spenser brings an order to the situation despite a chaotic and convoluted past. Hadfield further mentions this by way of the opening canto in Book II in which Spenser “shows the reader the nature of the post-Reformation world and, in doing so, starts to demonstrate what needs to be considered and confronted” (Hadfield 37). Hadfield notices Spenser’s ability to understand the time period but to also push people toward something else entirely. As a gifted poet and rhetorician, he had the ability to do so, but as a servant of Elizabeth I he pushed forward in a different way.
The people needed direction, so that is what Spenser gave them, through the form of an allegorical fairytale. The anxiety and division of the period could have proven to be quite detrimental for the movement toward Protestantism, but such focus away from Catholicism is what maintained the order needed. He could aim to create some semblance of order throughout the country through the virtues and lessons taught by this poem. His influence and power would also help his own reputation in court, as he needed to display power to those above him. This complimentary piece aids his status but also the movement toward becoming a Protestant country in which Catholicism is condemned for almost everything it stands for.
Spenser’s own agency should also be noted, as he is the one who serves to clarify the differences and convoluted nature seen throughout the binary of order and chaos. Although much of the focus was on Elizabeth I’s power as a leader, Spenser plays a role in promoting that power. His rhetorical ability aids the argument because it is packaged in a pleasing and mystifying way. The power of storytelling reigns true despite the obvious power of a monarch. Perhaps Spenser’s attempts to glorify and reinstate Elizabeth I and Protestantism has more power than previously believed. Even today we study Spenser and Elizabeth I in similar contexts despite the obvious difference in power. Yet the influence that they both had can be, and still is, questioned today. Perhaps they are even more intertwined than separate, because without the other would each have received the acclaim that has made them relevant today? Questions like this one is what peaks the interest of readers today, and is what hopefully will peak the interests of readers in the future. There is no definitive answer because we are so far removed and yet we still attempt to understand the motivations for creating order in a chaotic world.
References
Campana, Joseph. The Pain of Reformation: Spenser, Vulnerability, and the Ethics of Masculinity. New York: Fordham UP, 2012. EBL Reader. Web.
Giamatti, A. Bartlett. "A Prince And Her Poet." Yale Review 99.3 (2011): 144-160. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 May 2016.
Hadfield, Andrew. Edmund Spenser: A Life. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. EBL Reader. Web.
Hadfield, Andrew. "Spenser And Religion--Yet Again." SEL: Studies In English Literature (Johns Hopkins) 51.1 (2011): 21-46. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 May 2016.
Schuette, Gerhardt. "Edmund Spenser's Anti-Catholicism: Duessa's Part In It All." Michigan Academician 42.1 (2015): 108-118. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Theis, Jeffrey. "Literature And The Renaissance Garden From Elizabeth I To Charles II: England's Paradise." Milton Quarterly 48.2 (2014): 126-130. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
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