Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and Conventions
- 1 Introduction: Reading Spenser's Language
- 2 ‘Pleasing Analysis’: Renaissance Hermeneutics, Poetry, and the Law
- 3 Results: A Survey of Spenser's Legal Diction
- 4 Property and Contract in the Quests of Florimell and Amoret
- 5 Justice, Equity and Mercy in The Legend of Artegall
- 6 Courtesy and Prerogative in The Legend of Sir Calidore
- 7 The Composition of the World: Managing Power in the Two Cantos of Mutabilitie
- 8 Lyric Opposition in Spenser, Shakespeare, and Donne
- 9 After Words
- Glossary of Selected Legal Diction in The Faerie Queene
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Studies in Renaissance Literature
1 - Introduction: Reading Spenser's Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and Conventions
- 1 Introduction: Reading Spenser's Language
- 2 ‘Pleasing Analysis’: Renaissance Hermeneutics, Poetry, and the Law
- 3 Results: A Survey of Spenser's Legal Diction
- 4 Property and Contract in the Quests of Florimell and Amoret
- 5 Justice, Equity and Mercy in The Legend of Artegall
- 6 Courtesy and Prerogative in The Legend of Sir Calidore
- 7 The Composition of the World: Managing Power in the Two Cantos of Mutabilitie
- 8 Lyric Opposition in Spenser, Shakespeare, and Donne
- 9 After Words
- Glossary of Selected Legal Diction in The Faerie Queene
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Studies in Renaissance Literature
Summary
ARCHIMAGO, the Enchanter plotting to separate the knight of the Redcrosse from his companion, Una, has already by Book I, canto ii of The Faerie Queene made a first attempt. Summoning a dream from hell, and joining to it the manage of a ‘faire-forged Spright’, he has toiled Redcrosse's brain with a vision of Una's wantonness, but to no effect. Remarshalling his powers, he creates of the same dream and spirit a waking vision, to which, arousing Redcrosse from his bed, he urges him. The three stanzas in which Spenser narrates this seminal event provide a representative example of the poet's total mastery of his poetic language:
Forthwith he runnes with feigned faithfull hast Vnto his guest, who after troublous sights And dreames gan now to take more sound repast, Whom suddenly he wakes with fearful frights, As one aghast with feends or damned sprights, And to him cals, Rise rise vnhappy Swaine, That here wex old in sleepe, whiles wicked wights Haue knit themselues in Venus shameful chaine; Come see, where your false Lady doth her honor staine.
All in amaze he suddenly vp start With sword in hand, and with the old man went; Who soone him brought into a secret part, Where that false couple were full closely ment In wanton lust and leud embracement: Which when he saw, he burnt with gealous fire, The eie of reason was with rage yblent, And would haue slaine them in his furious ire, But hardly was restreined of that aged sire.
Retourning to his bed in torment great, And bitter anguish of his guilty sight, He could not rest, but did his stout heart eat, And wast his inward gall with deepe despight, Yrkesome of life, and too long lingring night. At last faire Hesperus in highest skie Had spent his lampe, and brought forth dawning light, Then vp he rose, and clad him hastily; he dwarfe him brought his steed: so both away do fly.
(FQ I.ii.4–6)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Spenser's Legal LanguageLaw and Poetry in Early Modern England, pp. 1 - 16Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007