Britomart’s Spear and Merlin’s Mirror: Magics Meaningful and Meaningless in The Faerie Queene, Book III
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This essay examines the function and symbolism of magic in the narrative of Britomart, the female knight in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Though she is not herself magical, the initial episode in Book III where we first encounter Britomart does link her to magic in interesting ways. We realize how Spenser invests the idea and image of magic with meanings that develop important themes in Britomart’s (and indeed Spenser’s overarching) story. I argue that the way in which this section of the poem repeatedly de-emphasizes the significance and the power of magic cleverly allows Spenser at once to advance an argument for Elizabeth’s greatness (as a virtuous queen) and for his own (as a poet of a significant power rivaling that of any wondrous magic recorded in romance).
Abstract
This essay examines the function and symbolism of magic in the narrative of Britomart, the female knight in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Though she is not herself magical, the initial episode in Book III where we first encounter Britomart does link her to magic in interesting ways. We realize how Spenser invests the idea and image of magic with meanings that develop important themes in Britomart’s (and indeed Spenser’s overarching) story. I argue that the way in which this section of the poem repeatedly de-emphasizes the significance and the power of magic cleverly allows Spenser at once to advance an argument for Elizabeth’s greatness (as a virtuous queen) and for his own (as a poet of a significant power rivaling that of any wondrous magic recorded in romance).
참고문헌 (9)
- Anderson, Judith H, "Britomart’s Armor in Spenser’s Faerie Queene: Reopening Cultural Matters of Gender and Figuration", English Literary Renaissance, 39(1), pp.74~96 (2009)
- Cheney, Patrick Gerard, "‘Secret powre unseene’: Good Magic in Spenser’s Legend of Britomart", Studies in Philology, 85(1), pp.1~28 (1988)
- Dark, Rebecca, "Reflections: Spenser, Elizabeth I, and Mirror Literature", Early English Studies, 1, pp.1~17 (2008)
- Frye, Susan, "Elizabeth I: The Competition for Representation" (1996), Oxford University Press
- Geoffrey of Monmouth, "The History of the Kings of Britain" (1966), Penguin
- Guenther, Genevieve, "Spenser’s Magic, or Instrumental Aesthetics in the 1590 Faerie Queene", English Literary Renaissance, 36(2), pp.194~226 (2006)
- Spenser, Edmund, "The Faerie Queene" (1978), Penguin
- Spiller, Elizabeth, "Science, Reading, and Renaissance Literature: The Art of Making Knowledge", pp.1580~1670 (2004), Cambridge UP
- Villeponteaux, Mary, "Displacing Feminine Authority in The Faerie Queene", Studies in English Literature, 35(1), pp.53~67 (1995)