The readings for this week will be from Edmund Spenser's unfinished allegorical romance, The Faerie Queene (1590):Read: the "Letter of the Authors," pp. 716-19;
Book II, Canto 12, pp. 857-67;
and Book III, Canto 6, pp. 867-79.
It is also essential to read the editor's introduction (pp. 714-16), since it goes far to explain the poem's goals and narrative structure, which are complex.
Q1 (Joanna): In his "Letter of the Authors," Spenser tells Sir Walter Ralegh that The Faerie Queene is a "continued Allegory, or darke conceit." First, what is an allegory? Second, what is a poetic conceit? And lastly, from what we've read in Books II & III, pick out a few moments that seem to you particularly allegorical. (Hint: the Norton editors' intro could help you here. Also, bonus: why does Spenser call his poem a "darke conceit"?)
Q2 (Mandy): In the beginning of the "Bower of Bliss" episode, we hear about "a place pickt out by choice of best alive, / That natures work by art can imitate" (Book II, Canto 12, ll. 372-3). Find some places throughout the canto where "art," imitation, and illusions are discussed. What do you think the canto leads us to believe about the value of art? (Bonus: what about the fact that Spenser needs to use art to tell us this?)
Q3 (Carol J.): In the "Letter of the Authors," Spenser makes it clear that his poem is in some sense a political allegory; the Faerie Queene, for instance, is allegorical of Queen Elizabeth's public rule and private virtue. This political aspect of the poem has led some critics to suggest a connection between Book II's "The Bower of Bliss" and the colonial condition of the Irish people; (a condition Spenser knew well because he lived in Ireland, helping England impose a brutal regime upon the Irish). Take a look at this excerpt from Spenser's essay "A View of the State of Ireland" (click on the link). What connections can you draw between Book II, Canto 12 and the essay? (Hint: Lines 703-83 in that canto might be a good place to start.)
Q4 (Christine): Comment on something in the Bower of Bliss that you found interesting (or confusing, or paradoxical), or come up with a question for me. Use some quotations from the text.
Q5 (Matt): If the "Bower of Bliss" is the realm of Art and Illusion, then perhaps the "Garden of Adonis" is the dominion of Nature; it is "so faire a place as Nature can devise" (l. 255). How does Nature and how do natural things seem to work in this episode; what sorts of principles seem to guide them? Give some examples. (Hint: you can choose examples from the actual description of the Garden, or from the opening of the canto which describes Belphoebe's miraculous conception, ll. 19-81).
Q6 (Mark): Compare and contrast the initial description of the creation of forms in the "Garden of Adonis" (ll. 280-320) with the description of the "huge eternall Chaos" (ll. 321-342) that fuels that production. How are the two aspects of earthly creation related? Are they polar opposites, or do they share any qualities? Are they necessary to each other? Why does the one contain more "positive" associations and descriptions, and the other more "negative" ones?
Q7 (Renée): The "Garden of Adonis" and the "Bower of Bliss" possess an astounding number of similarities. To name three examples: they each are described as being intensely beautiful; each is somehow related to the "infinite" (Book II, Canto 12, l. 550 & Book III, Canto 6, l. 307, for example); and each have a powerful woman amorously engaging with a (more mortal) lover. (The Witch and the young man in the "Bower of Bliss," and Venus and Adonis in the "Garden"). Why then is the "Bower of Bliss" destroyed by Sir Guyon and the "Garden of Adonis" let be? What's the difference between the two? Do the differences strike you as real differences?
Q8 (Josie): Comment on something you found interesting (or confusing, or paradoxical) in the "Garden of Adonis" episode, or ask me an extended, quotation-rich question about it. Talk about whatever you like.
‘’The Bower of Bliss’’ is a garden that is decorated with many astonishingly beautiful artificial crafts. What makes this garden beautiful is the outside decoration not the inner beauty.
回覆刪除‘’And over all, of purest gold was spred,
A trayle of yvie in his native hew:
For the rich mettall was so colored,
That wight, who did not well avis'd it view,
Would surely deeme it to be yvie trew:
Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe,
That themselves dipping in the silver dew,
Their fleecy flowres they tenderly did steepe,
Which drops of Christall seemed for wantones to weepe. [II.XII.6I]’’
The artifice decoration of the garden is also an indication that once men enter the garden their nature would be distorted. Even the word ‘’bliss’’ contains a sense of lust, pleasures, desires.
In contrast, ‘’the garden of Adoins’’ are one hundred percent natural. It possesses the beauty of nature.
‘'It sited was in fruitfull soyle of old' [III.VI.3I].
In that same Gardin all the goodly flowres,
Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautifie,
And decks the girlonds of her paramoures,
Are fetcht: [III.VI.30])
I think these two gardens are totally different, although they are both charming. Take charity for example, it is supposed that people who donates longing to help people in need. Yet, it is undeniable that some of the celebrities intended to raise their popularity by attending the charity events. The same situation lies in ‘’the bower of bliss’’ and ‘’the garden of Adoins’’. One is deception and the other is truth.
For Guyon, he is supposed to be the symbol of temperance, yet he was seduced by the queen of the garden. I believe that Edmund Spencer plotted Sir Guyon to destroy ‘’the Bower of Bliss’’ for the reason that wants everyone to face the world with truthfulness. Dislike the disguise of human and the nature, to put an end of the bower of bliss is the best way to illustrate Spencer’s opinion.
The more excellent skill of art is in the palace, the more prosperous kingdom presents. The art is need to be dedicate and astonishing so that people who enter the palace would feel littleness. First, people wander the animated flowers and are surprised by the artificial scene (p. 859, poem 52). Second, the art here not only is beautiful but also created with the expensive metals such as gold leaves and silver stream (poem 61). That reveals the powerful might of the kingdom. Third it imitates nature, even moves the illusive paradise into the palace (poem 58). The art means the palace’s power is divine for those gods and goddess live in the place probably (p.862). After introducing the art, the host appears (from poem 64). Readers may curiosity about what kind of person in the house may be because the power and the fortune of here.
回覆刪除This is Matt answering Q5:
回覆刪除"The substance is not changed, nor alterèd, but th’ only forme and outward fashiön; for every substance is conditioned to change her hew, and sundry forms to don, meet for her temper and complexion: for formes are variable and decay, by course of kind and by occasion;" (III, VI, Line 334-340)
From this quotation about the garden of Adonis, Spenser describe the natural principle in this poetic world that Nature is unchangeable because the substance in nature will never change or alter, while those natural things composed of substance from Nature will change continually by appearing in different fleshly forms in this changeful world. In line 280-298, we can see the procedure of reincarnation in Nature that natural things are processed through "cloth with sinful mire, and sendeth forth to live in mortall state, Till they againe returne backe by the hinder state." (Line 286-288)
Throughout this canto, several words appear repeatedly such as fruitful, seed, progenyes which closely relates to the birth of natural things and its result. But what is the power makes seeds fruitful? It is Time. Nature produces seeds in this mortal world, and the Time makes everything ripens and becomes fruitful, and in the end decayed when the time comes. Even the goddess can only "lament the losse of her deare brood, her deare delight."(Line 354-355) It is a law that even higher above goddess.
This Josie answering question 8:
回覆刪除I found something interesting but paradoxical in the part depicting the “The garden of Adonis”. The paradox lies in the fact that the imaginative “Garden of Adonis” combines two kind of opposite property, one is the transiency of life, and the other is the eternal cycle of natural process, birth and died. In book 3 verse 39 “Great enemy to it, and to all the rest, that in the garden of Adonis springs, is wicked time.” And verse 40, “For all that lives, is subject to that law, all thing decay in time, and their end do draw.” It seems the flowers in the garden are in some way mutable as the times passing by just like every creature on the earth that would go through the process from birth, aging and eventually died at the end. However, on the other hand, the cycle of birth and death is eternal in that garden. It’s kind of like the concept of reincarnation, referring that the end of one journey is the beginning of another one, which just never ceased. Like the verse 33 “So like a wheel around they runne from to new”
This is Mark answering Q6:
回覆刪除“For the wide wombe of the world there lyes,
In the hateful darknesse and in deepe horror
An huge eternal Chaos, which supplyes
The substances of nature fruitfull progenyes.” (III,XI,321)
Here I think Spenser first try to connect the “huge eternal chaos” to womb, which produce of generation and new life. The way how life is generated is widely discussed by philosophers like Plato; influenced by his theory, I think Spenser combines the ancient Greek epics and his imagination to create the scene of “Garden of Adonis.” In Garden of Adonis, young people leave while old people enter; it looks totally different to our secular would: young people come to this world while the old leave.
When it comes to creation, myth always comes with a chaotic or obscure world that God is trying to manage. Even in Chinese myth, the world is created by a giant who uses his axe to divide sky and ground into two parts; in Bible, God spend seven years doing similar things to create our world. Thus our thoughts always relate “creation” and “chaotic” as one thing. The earthly creation and creation of Garden of Adonis is different in some way, but they also share some quality in common:
“Great enemy to it, and to all the rest,
That is the Garden of Adonis springs
Is wicked Time.” (III,XI,345)
Time both influence the secular world and the Garden of Adonis. People in both two worlds suffer from its change; earthly people must experience death while babies in Garden of Adonis will soon leave their heavenly environment to troublesome world. The images Spenser use is trying to distinguish the difference between our world and Garden of Adonis, thus positive words are used for creating a beautiful, harmonious scene. After all, people long for a world without pain but full of happiness which opposite to secular world.
This is Carol answering Q4:
回覆刪除The most obvious connection I found is the resemblance of Circe. From the Faerie Queen, Acrasia attracts Guyon by offering wine, which refused by him. And in Odyssey, Circe also invited Odysseus’ crew to a feast. Then from lines 757-61:
Said he, ‘These seeming beasts are men indeed,
Whom this Enchauntresse hath transformed thus,
Whylome her lovers, which her lusts did feed,
Now turned into figures hideous,
According to their minds monstrous.”
Acrasia would turn the men who can not resist her enticement into beasts, which is the same with Circe---turning her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals through the use of magical potions.
And in A View of the State of Ireland, Irenius said to Eudox:
Likewise that the MacSwynes, now in Ulster, were anciently of the Veres in England, but that they themselves, for hatred of the English, so disguised their names.
From the spelling, we know that the name “MacSwynes” is a hint (make swines). Just like what mentioned, Circe would make the men she hated into animals.
And in stanzas 86~87, although the Palmer helped the beats returned into men again, some would rather stay in the same way (like a beast)–like Grille. And in A View of the State of Ireland, Eudox tells Irenius that “That seemeth very strange which you say, that men should so much degenerate from their first natures as to grow wild”, I think Spenser connects the degenerate Old English men and the victims of Acrsia's.
This is Christine answering Q4:
回覆刪除I am filled with confusion after reading “The bower of bliss”!
We see Guyon and the Palmer passes through the barriers one by one so smoothly, but I rarely see Guyon shows his “temperaunce” by himself. The reason why he finally passes these trials is all because of the help of the Palmer who acts like a guardian preventing Guyon from the lures and magically comes up with a net which could catch Acrasia and her lover. The question is: Do Guyon really own the characteristic “temperance”?
Still, there are some places that interest me. “O horrible enchantment, that him so did blend”(720) I laugh out loud when I see this line, because I think we could often go blind without enchantment. But Spenser sighs which makes me feel interesting. “These seeming beast are men indeed,”(757) is another place that I aware which is also interesting. Maybe Spenser didn’t mean it originally, but for me, this line seems ironic and so true. “Yet being men they did unmanly looke,” (768) We see some cases on the news very often that somebody don’t act like a man but like a beast.
I don’t know the reason why, but after finish reading this poem, I think of the movie “Avatar”. It’s probably crazy, but I think Guyon is kind of selfish that he destroyed “The Bower of Bliss” which looks like a beautiful place ay last.
This is Joanna giving a few comments. I want to say that the reading and question this week is SO HARD beyond what I could understand. AH….
回覆刪除What is an allegory?
According to Oxford English Dictionary, the allegory has many meanings.
1. Description of a subject under the guise of some other subject of aptly suggestive resemblance.
2. An instance of such description; a figurative sentence, discourse, or narrative, in which properties and circumstances attributed to the apparent subject really refer to the subject they are meant to suggest; an extended or continued metaphor.
3. An allegorical representation; an emblem.
In the introduction of The Faerie Queene, “Spenser describes his exuberant, multifaceted poem as an allegory – an extended metaphor or dark conceit”. The knights have the surprising complex, altogether human relation to their allegorical identities.
What is a poetic conceit?
Poetic conceit is a term for an extended metaphor that governs a whole poem.
Why does Spenser call his poem a "darke conceit"?
I think… is that because the concept of the poem is “a commitment to a life of constant struggle and a profound longing for rest; a celebration of human heroism and a perception of ineradicable human sinfulness; a vision of evil as a terrifying potent force and a vision of evil as mere emptiness.”. Spenser not only shows the bright side but also reveals the tension and dark side in the poem.
From what we've read in Books II & III, pick out a few moments that seem to you particularly allegorical.
In fact, I do not really really understand as I read through the text. But I want to ask the questions I am so confused about.
Firstly, in Book II, 44 to 45, I do not know why Spenser uses Medea’s story in the beginning. I do not see the connection in the poem and do not realize why it is need.
And there are many names are used in the Book II and III that I find hard to realize what they are used and what their functions are.
But I think I find it interesting as I read through the part in book III, p 869, part 7. The part makes me think of the similar scene I read in Chinese Literature last week.