여왕의 직위에 관한 재고찰: 스펜서의 『선녀왕』과 여왕 엘리자베스

Abstract

Edmund Spenser spent most of his adulthood in Ireland as a colonial administrator. As a National poet, however, his career is clearly distinguished from those of military courtiers, whose blind adulation of the Queen was the most effective and easy measure for obtaining self-protection. In his epic The Faerie Queene, Spenser gradually and increasingly distances himself from the complex world of politics, representing himself as a philosopher-poet. Spenser nevertheless considers and compares diverse modes of queenship in his allegorical episodes, which in turn influence the readers’ perspectives regarding the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The Queen herself, of course, is the primary reader, besides the illustrious courtiers to whom Spenser famously wrote 17 dedicatory sonnets. This paper examines how Spenser analyzes different kinds of governments ruled by a female monarch. The most intensely controversial issues regarding the Elizabethan queenship, as they are allegorized in Spenser’s fiction, are the notions of “chastity” and “mercy.” Without any direct criticism towards the Queen, Spenser illustrates diverse models of queenship, thereby questioning the authenticity and authority of the female ruler.