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Cognitive Dissonance: the Apocalyptic Poetics of Spenser’S Faerie Queene

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Cognitive Dissonance: the Apocalyptic Poetics of Spenser’S Faerie Queene University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2007 Cognitive Dissonance: The Apocalyptic Poetics of Spenser’s Faerie Queene April Phillips Boone University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Boone, April Phillips, "Cognitive Dissonance: The Apocalyptic Poetics of Spenser’s Faerie Queene. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2007. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/126 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by April Phillips Boone entitled "Cognitive Dissonance: The Apocalyptic Poetics of Spenser’s Faerie Queene." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Robert Stillman, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Allen Carroll, Heather Hirschfeld, Robert Bast Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by April Phillips Boone entitled “Cognitive Dissonance: The Apocalyptic Poetics of Spenser’s Faerie Queene.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Robert Stillman, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Allen Carroll Heather Hirschfeld Robert Bast Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records) COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: THE APOCALYPTIC POETICS OF SPENSER’S FAERIE QUEENE A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville April Phillips Boone December 2007 ii Copyright © by April Phillips Boone 2007 All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION This project is dedicated: to my parents, Gary Phillips and Wanda Phillips, for filling my childhood home with books, stories, and an environment of thoughtful reading and creativity; to my sister, Amy Mace, for our collaborative childhood projects inspired by that creative environment; and to my husband, Kevin Boone, for all the support and the sacrifices made to foster the realization of this goal. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To my entire dissertation committee at The University of Tennessee, I am grateful for the careful readings, the incisive questions, and the invaluable comments regarding this project in its various stages. Thanks, in addition, for your willingness to work with me from a distance, which has allowed me to have continued contact with undergraduate students by teaching at Mars Hill College, in my hometown of Mars Hill, North Carolina. In particular, I thank my director, Dr. Robert Stillman, for the initial inspiration for this project which came from my first encounter with Anne Askew’s Examinations in his course in Renaissance literature, for his guidance throughout the project, and especially for his recommending my reading of Jan van der Noot’s Theatre for Worldlings at a point when my work needed fresh inspiration. In addition, I offer thanks to Dr. Heather Hirschfeld, Dr. D. Allen Carroll, and Dr. Robert Bast for serving on the committee and for offering their expertise, enthusiasm, encouragement, and attention to detail. Finally, I wish to thank Dr. Kathy Meacham of Mars Hill College for her continued advice and encouragement as the project progressed to completion. v ABSTRACT While sixteenth-century citizens of England and the Continent read, interpreted, and appropriated The Book of Revelation for a number of purposes, Edmund Spenser’s primary motivation was to find a source of his poetic theory and practice, as well as his poetic themes and imagery. Spenser began his literary career in 1569 with the anonymous publication of his English translation of Jan van der Noot’s Theatre for Worldlings, which concluded with four sonnets based on scenes from Revelation. My project examines the ways in which Revelation, or Apocalypse as it was frequently called in the period, remained a significant creative fountainhead to Spenser throughout his career, well beyond his initial affiliation with Van der Noot’s work. Though I demonstrate evidence of this claim in a number of Spenser’s poems, my primary focus is upon The Faerie Queene, which is not only an interpretation of Apocalypse, but is also itself an apocalyptic work of literature. Although scholars have noted Spenser’s allusions to Apocalypse primarily in Books One and Five of The Faerie Queene, my project cites passages and poetic strategies from each of the poem’s seven books in order to demonstrate a more pervasive apocalyptic presence in the work than has been previously thought. My analysis examines The Faerie Queene in the context of the contemporary readings of Revelation prevalent in the poem’s immediate culture, and explores the hermeneutics by which contemporary Reformed readers would have approached the Bible, Revelation in particular, and Spenser’s poem. In addition, this project examines the ways in which Spenser’s poetics utilizes the apocalyptic strategies of recapitulation, intensification, and augmentation. vi Like Revelation, Spenser’s work evokes a pious form of cognitive dissonance in its readers, evident in the intensifying complaints of figures in the poem. Ultimately, the dissonance, first experienced by the poet-prophet who sees a transcendent vision yet to be fulfilled, is passed to readers, in whom it fosters the desire for transcendence (otherwise known as faith). Though many exegetes of Revelation in the late sixteenth century promoted absolute mastery of apocalyptic knowledge as a sign of the godly, Spenser, in The Faerie Queene, argues that indeterminacy is the virtue of Apocalypse, and that cognitive dissonance is necessary for the faith of true believers who remain active in the fight, waiting for the End and trusting that their longing for consummate knowledge will one day be fulfilled. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction: Apocalyptic Poetics and the Longing for First Things …………..1 Chapter One: “Wonderous Augmentation”: Apocalyptic Recapitulation and Intensification in The Faerie Queene, Book One……………21 Chapter Two: “The Ende and Vanishing Tyme”: The Faerie Queene, Complaints of Love’s Martyrs, and the Purpose of Apocalyptic Delay…………………………………………………..60 Chapter Three: “To Signifie Nothing Else”: The Faerie Queene, Apocalyptic Hermeneutics, and the Fight of Faith……………………………124 Conclusion: “Nigh Ravisht”: The Faerie Queene on the Role of the Poet-Prophet and the Nature of Apocalyptic Vision…………….207 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...232 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………..248 1 Introduction: Apocalyptic Poetics and the Longing for First Things Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd, Of that same time when no more Change shall be, But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd Vpon the pillours of Eternity, That is contrayr to Mutabilitie: For, all that moueth, doth in Change delight: But thence-forth all shall rest eternally With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight: O that great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight. – Narrator, The Faerie Queene (VII.viii.2) Perhaps it is surprising to begin a discussion of Spenser’s apocalyptic poetics with a contemplation of “first things first.” Apocalypse, or Revelation, after all, has held the place as the final book in the Christian canon for centuries.1 Moreover, the apocalyptic genre typically is associated with the study of last things as opposed to first. To modern sensibilities, the term “apocalypse” connotes visions of the horrific, cataclysmic end to all things, but many sixteenth-century Reformist readers of Revelation had more of a sense that, in addition to such an end, Apocalypse means a return to the purity of the beginning for true believers. For Reformers such as William Fulke, friend of John Foxe and mentor of Gabriel Harvey2, for example, eschatology is as much about first things (albeit new and improved first things) as about last things. In Praelections upon the sacred and holy Revelation of S. John, in 1573, Fulke comments on Revelation 22:2: In the earthly paradise, there was [only one] tree of life in the middest of the garden which was a sacrament and pledge of blessed and eternal life, if they 1 Robert Bast points out that “The canon of the Bible (including the Book of Revelations) was ratified at the Council of Trent (1545-64) after being challenged by Protestants, but for practical purposes that canon was fixed in the 5th century already, and standardized in practice by the ubiquitous use of Jerome’s Latin translation.” Private commentary, University of Tennessee, September 2007. 2 See Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey, ed. Edward John Long Scott (New York and London:
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