Controversy over Passion Plays

Medieval Section Overview

• Two linguistic and literary historical periods

• Old English—Anglo-Saxon

• Middle English

Beowulf

• Nature of the hero

• Structure of the poem

– Relation to issues of gender

Canterbury Tales

• Estates Satire

• Miller’s Tale—Fabliau—Quitting

• Wife of Bath—Anti-feminist Satire

• Pardoner—

– Spiritual and physical ambiguity

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

• Text Structured through parallels

• The façade of courtly culture

• Testing of Knightly Identity

Kempe

• Auto-hagiography

Affective piety

Welcome to the early modern period

– Literary Division• Anglo-Saxon or Old English Literature• Middle English Literature• The Early Modern Period, aka The Renaissance

» The Elizabethan Age: reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603)

» Jacobean Age: Reign of James I (1603-25)» Caroline Age: Charles I (1625-49)» Commonwealth period (1649-1660)

Spenser

http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple;c=eebo;cc=eebo;sid=b204ec4098f56b6761dfcc7dc09ba9cd;rgn=full%20text;q1=faerie%20queene;firstpubl1=1470;firstpubl2=1700;view=toc;subview=short;sort=occur;start=1;size=25;idno=A12777.0001.001

The Fairie Queene

• Not a poem to “solve,” but rather to experience

• Exploration of identity

• Exploration of abstract ideas– Red Cross and Una are characters and

concepts

Fairie Queene

• The genres of the FQ--overview

–Epic –Romance–Allegory

Genre--epic

• Long narrative poem

• Serious and formal style

• Heroic, perhaps quasi-divine central figure

• Tells the story of a nation, a tribe or even all of humanity

Genre epic

• Spenser’s epic elements– Begins in medias res– Use of epic simile

• 1.2.16

Genre--Romance

–We’ve already seen some romance–Auerbach’s definition

–Romance—The Letter to Raleigh• ”To Fashion a Gentleman”

–P. 716 (8th) and 777 (9th)–Archaic language

Fairie Queene

• Proem

– The Poetic “I” (stanza one)

– Gloriana (stanza four)

Genre: Allegory

• A darke conceit

• Allegory and levels of meaning

Fairie Queene

• Canto One—Den of Error

• Red Cross Knight I.1.1• Una I.1.4• Wandering Wood I.1.7 and I.1.10• The Den of Error I.1.11 line 96 ff• The Monster Error I.1.14 line 123

Fairie Queene

• Canto One—Den of Error

• Red Cross Knight I.1.1• Una I.1.4• Wandering Wood I.1.7 and I.1.10• The Den of Error I.1.11 line 96 ff• The Monster Error I.1.14 line 123

Error

• From the Latin, errare (to wander)

• What is the nature of this error?

• How does this monster represent this?

• Epic simile, Nile: I.1.21

Archimago Episode

• Archimago introduced I.1. 29

• Hypocrisy

• Connections to Catholicism I. 1. 35

• The creation of the false Una I.1.45

• Una and RCK separated

• RCK’s anger: 1.1.4 and 5

Una and RCK separated

• Allegory of the English Church

• Allegory of Truth and Holiness

Duessa (I.2.13 ff)

• What she signifies—some critical views

– Falsity

– Church of Rome

– Mary Queen of Scots

– Whore of Babylon

– Sans Foy—Saracen I.2.12

Duessa Episode

• Combat with Sans Foy (I.2.16)

• Fradubbio (I.2.31)

• Duessa Revealed (I.2.41)

Book II

• Guyon—Knight of Temperance

– Temperance as Moderation• OED: “practice or habit of restraining

oneself in provocation, passion, desire etc. Rational self-restraint

– Accompanied by Palmer--Reason

The Bower of Bliss

• Location in an artificial Garden (st. 42)– Enclosed, but how: st. 43

• Genius and the Self (st. 47)

• Sexual Temptation

• Acrasia in the Bower

Guyon

• Reactions– St. 55– St. 66

– Guidance from the Palmer (69)

Acrasia

• Her name means “intemperance”’ – Allegory: temperance conquers intemperance

• Witch with her lover (st. 72)– Temptress who turns men into beasts (Circe)

• Sensual temptation (st. 77)

• Loss of masculine strength (st. 80)

Bower destroyed

• Guyon’s destruction of the Bower 83

Possible contexts

• New World• Ireland• The Elizabethan court

itself