Soteriology in Edmund Spenser's 'The Faerie Queene'

SOTERIOLOGY IN EDMUND SPENSER’S THE FAERIE QUEENE by STUART ANTHONY HART A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English Literature School of English, Drama and American and Canadian Studies College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham March 2018 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT 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. !ii For Jane, Georgina-May, Eleanor-Rose, Mum, Dad and Molly !iii Acknowledgements In finally reaching the end of this project, it is right and proper that I should acknowledge those people who have played a major part in ensuring its completion. Firstly, I owe a great debt of thanks to my doctoral supervisors - Dr Gillian Wright and Dr Hugh Adlington. For many years they have been a source of guidance, encouraging me to ask the right questions in relation to Spenser’s allegory and prompting me, every step of the way, to think through the logic of my ideas with increasing precision. In addition, when the trials and tribulations of life have threatened to get in the way of my research they have been unfailingly supportive and sympathetic; moreover, they have been wholly generous in their time regularly meeting for supervisions at the end of a busy working day. Given the time it has taken to complete it, I hope that they feel the project was worth their labour. Secondly, I would like to thank my wonderful parents for their unwavering support and belief that I could complete this thesis. Their generosity, love and encouragement has meant so much. Regrettably Dad did not get to see the completion of my research, which has been a matter of great sadness as I know he would have been very proud. Nevertheless, it is in honour of his memory that I have made the final push. I would also like to thank Molly who patiently and devotedly sat beside me throughout these many years eagerly waiting for me to take her for a walk. Her love and companionship have been very special. I would also like to thank my daughters - Georgina-May and Eleanor-Rose. For so much of their childhood I have been preoccupied with Spenser’s allegory and matters of sixteenth-century theology when, really, I should have devoted my time to them. Sorry girls; Daddy’s back now! Finally, I must pay the greatest debt of thanks to my wife, Jane. She has been the voice of reason and perspective throughout. Without her unfailing generosity, love and patience, none of this would have been possible. It is down to her support and encouragement that the thesis finds itself completed. !iv Contents Page Abbreviations and Conventions vi Scholarly Conventions vi Introduction 1 1. A Theological Reading of Temperance: Book II of The Faerie Queene 36 2. The Trials of Timias: Towards a Definition of Spenserian Honour 110 3. A Religious Reading of Spenserian Courtesy 161 4. ‘Such chaunces oft exceed all humaine thought’: A Theological Reading of 220 ‘Fortune’ and ‘Chance’ in Book VI of The Faerie Queene Conclusion 263 Bibliography 267 !v Abbreviations and Conventions Unless otherwise indicated, all references to The Faerie Queene are taken from: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, rev. 2nd edition, ed. A. C. Hamilton (Harlow: Pearson Educational, 2007). All references to Spenser’s shorter poems are taken from: Edmund Spenser, The Shorter Poems, ed. by Richard McCabe (London: Penguin, 1999). All references to the Oxford English Dictionary are to the online edition, as are the references to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. All biblical quotations, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the online version of the 1587 Geneva Bible, which is reproduced on the Bible in English 990-1970 (LION) website. Abbreviations of Periodicals and Reference Works ELH English Literary History ELR English Literary Renaissance HLQ Huntington Library Quarterly JBS Journal of British Studies MLR Modern Language Review MLS Modern Language Studies MP Modern Philology N&Q Notes and Queries ODNB Oxford Dictionary National Biography OED Oxford English Dictionary P&P Past and Present PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association RES Review of English Studies SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 SIP Studies in Philology Scholarly Conventions When quoting from early modern texts I have retained contemporary spelling and punctuation, as well as capitalisation. I have also silently standardised the use of long ‘s’, and expanded any contractions and abbreviations within square brackets. Moreover, I have followed early modern capitalisation in titles in addition to spelling. Throughout I have used the MHRA Style Guide. !vi Introduction Spenser and Religion — Time for a re-evaluation The subject of this thesis is soteriology in Edmund Spenser’s epic poem, The Faerie Queene. The term soteriology derives from the Greek term, "#$%&'(, which means salvation. In Christian theology, soteriology is the doctrine of human nature as it is affected by the Fall and mankind’s sinfulness, which is the antecedent of Christ’s work and eventual sacrifice. It is also the doctrine of man’s final destiny, and is concerned with ideas of atonement, grace and damnation.1 The thesis examines the extent to which Spenser’s The Faerie Queene engages with early modern notions of soteriology. Spenser grew up and came of age, poetically and politically, during the turbulent inaugural decades in the history of the Church of England. This was an age of great conflict between religious sectaries and the established religious and political orders, and the theological tensions and uncertainties that existed during the time underpin much of Spenser’s work, not least in the poet’s literary treatment of the Christian doctrine of salvation. The question of one’s salvation, and how it might be granted or achieved, was the basis of much doctrinal debate during the 1580s and 1590s, as Reformation historians have demonstrated.2 Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, which was written during these decades, is acutely alive to these debates, and refracts the complex positions and divisions that existed at the time. The broader subject of Spenser and religion, of which soteriology is a part, has been the focus of much previous scholarship. Traditionally, critics have tended to follow a similar 1 ‘Soteriology’ in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edn., ed. by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 1520. 2 See: Peter Lake, Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism c.1590-1640 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987); Peter White, Predestination, Policy and Polemic: Conflict and Consensus in the English Church from the Reformation to the Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). !1 path by seeking to establish Spenser’s doctrinal inclinations and theological influences through close analysis of key passages from his work, thereby positioning the poet on a doctrinal spectrum between Catholicism and more extreme forms of Protestantism. The picture of Spenser that has emerged is often contradictory. Critics have argued in favour of a Protestant Spenser, a Calvinist Spenser, an Augustinian Spenser as well as a conservative Spenser.3 Anthea Hume, John N. King and Paul McLane have stressed the Protestantism of Spenser’s writing. Hume and McLane have focused on the anti-Catholic sentiment of The Shepheardes Calender and ‘The Legend of Holiness’, whilst King has considered how the poet’s syncretic habit of drawing upon a range of iconographical devices from English Protestant art and literature position him at the centre of a Reformation literary tradition. Richard Mallette and Richard McCabe have stressed the Calvinist dimension of The Faerie Queene, whilst Sean Kane has identified the philosophical debts that Spenser owes to St Augustine. Virgil Whitaker and Harold Weatherby have suggested that Spenser’s form of Protestantism was distinctly conservative given his seeming sacramentalism, as well as his representations of the ascetic ideals of monasticism, and the relationship between grace and good works.4 Such conservatism would not have been unexpected in a period in which the old 3 For a Protestant view of Spenser see: Anthea Hume, Edmund Spenser: Protestant Poet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); John N.

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