Jack W. Ward
May 12, 2000
English 54
Dr. Jessica Wolfe
Spenser’s Muse, Savior and Allegory in the “The Shepheardes Calender” and “The
Faerie Queene”
In Book 1 of the “Faerie Queene,” Edmund Spenser describes a complex anatomy
of salvation in which free will might have some power to aide or hinder a predestined
soul. Despite Red Cross Knight’s trials, Una and the narrator assure the reader and the
knight that he cannot fail in his quest, and guarantee his salvation. Regardless, Spenser
still tries Red Cross Knight and explicitly illustrates the possibility of failure with Red
Cross Knight’s near suicide attempt in Despair’s cave. Spenser suggests that, like the
soul’s state of salvation or damnation, the poet requires no small degree of grace in his
vocation, and just as the as the individual might have effect on his soul, so too, the poet’s
labor co-determines his success.
Throughout “The Shepheardes Calander,” Spenser struggles with the nature and
source of poetic wit as part of his attempt to determine the Protestant poet's place and
identity in the poetic tradition. In “October,” Spenser develops a complex relationship
between divine inspiration and human labor that implies a symbiotic relationship between
the muse and the poet, each feeding off of each to advance poetry. Like his complicated
and seemingly contradictory view of salvation, Spenser’s view on poetics requires both
providence, in the form of heavenly inspiration, and free will, in the guise of labor, to
produce successful poetry. In his proems to the “Faerie Queene,” Spenser characterizes
his muse, the personification of heavenly inspiration, with both pagan convention and
Christian imagery. He reveals, in these proems a distinctly Protestant relationship with
his muse, who, like many of the characters in the allegory, is both a figure and a state of
being.
Throughout his poetical works, Spenser develops a working definition of
salvation that allows room for human agency and divine providence without anatomizing
these parts. This description of salvation, while complete for Spenser, with the subtleties
intact, is complicated for the reader, being wrought with ambiguity. Spenser’s theology
of salvation in “The Faerie Queene” attempts to reconcile free will and predestination as
Red Cross Knight is simultaneously assured of his salvation and tried. To rescue him
from Despair’s rhetoric, Una reminds Red Cross Knight of his predestined success: “Ne
let vaine words bewitch thy manly hart,/ Ne develish thoughts dismay thy constant
spright./ In heavenly mercies hast thou not a part?” (I, 9, 53.4). In reminding the knight
of his certain salvation Una is also reminding him to have faith. The disparity between
the certainty of Red Cross Knight’s salvation and his nearness to committing
unpardonable sin suggests an uncertainty about the nature of salvation. While Red Cross
Knight is assured of his success, he is given ample opportunity to fail. Spenser seems to
suggest that although one might be ordained to heaven or hell, one might lose or gain
grace by vice or virtue. This idea of grace dependent upon virtue appears again with
Heavenly Contemplation who says there are “[God’s] chosen people purged from sin and
guilt,” who will live in the “New Hierusalem” after death (I, 10, 57.4). Heavenly
Contemplation says Red Cross Knight is of those chosen since Hierusalem “is for [him]
ordained a blessed end” (I, 10, 61.5), yet the knight must study under Heavenly
Contemplation and repent for his sins with great pain. In effect Red Cross Knight is
regaining his virtue that he partially lost at the hands of Duessa and Despair by works of
human agency.
Like his ambiguous theology of salvation, Spenser’s views on poetry
paradoxically require both labor and divine ordination. In the Argument preceding
October, Spenser calls poetry
so worthy and commendable an arte: or rather no arte, but a divine gift and
heavenly instinct not to be gotten by laboure and learning, but adorned with both,
and poured into the witte by a certain [enthousiasmos]” (418).
The “enthusiasmos” is not only a kind of poetic inspiration but that of a religious
nature, by one of the possible definition. As such, the divine gift is an inspiration that is
linked to God. Spenser first calls poetry an art in this quotation and then corrects himself
as if he were improvising a speech. For an author to include what he has negated gives
considerable emphasis, not only to the correction, but to the mistake itself. Spenser
makes a conscious decision to correct himself in front of his audience rather than to
rewrite the passage. In doing so the argument suggests a paradoxical qualification of
poetic wit’s nature, by which, like Red Cross Knight’s success in the “Faerie Queene,”
the poet's wit and career are determined and ensured yet simultaneously effected by his
endeavor. Poetry might only be divinely inspired but man can effect it with his labor.
The muse’s importance to poetry is evident in writings as early as Homer but
Spenser’s emphasis on the “divine gift” (418) in the Argument all but eliminates human
endeavor from the process. This deference to God’s providence for poetic creation
smacks of Protestantism. It is as if, like one’s salvation, God predetermines the poet’s
level of success, and that heaven is supplying him with his matter. But like his treatment
of predestination in “The Faerie Queene,” Spenser’s treatment of poetic origins in “The
Shepheardes Calender” gets complicated by the degree of free will that seems to operate
along side and simultaneously with providence.
In “A Letter of the Authors” prefacing “The Faerie Queene,” Spenser states his
imitation of the classical poets. He says he has “followed all the antique Poets historical,
first Homere, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good
governour and a vertuous man, … then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the
person of Aeneas: after him Aristo … and lately Tasso …” (1). Here, in the preface to
his masterpiece, Spenser commits to the tradition of the classical poets yet “The Faerie
Queene,” with its virtuous man, Arthur, and governor, Elizabeth, is as distinctly British
and Protestant as Virgil’s Aenead is Roman. As an Anglican epic intending to give
examples of virtue in both the private and public lives, “The Faerie Queene” defines
Spenser’s idea of British Protestant virtue, just as Homer defined virtue for the Greeks.
This commitmentto the classic writers, however, wavers in his stylistics as he combines
pastoral conventions with the epic throughout “The Faerie Queene.” Any imitation of the
Greeks and Romans Spenser makes, and even those intentional departures from tradition,
imply Spenser’s labor in his poetic creation.
In “October,” Cuddie emphasizes the importance of following tradition in his
advancement as a poet. “Indeed the Romish Tityrus…” Cuddie reflects,
Through his Mecaenas left his Oaten reede
Whereon he earst had taught his flocks to feede,
And laboured lands to yeild the timely eare,
And eft did sing of warres and deadly dred,
So as the Heavens did quake his verse to here. (55-60)
To follow the example of Tityrus, whom EK notes is “Wel knowen to be Virgile” (420),
is for Cuddie to follow tradition and in doing so labor to advance his poetry. This
passage especially complicates the notion when put in context as a response to Piers. In
line 43 and 44 Piers suggests that switching to a higher genre may entice Cuddie’s “Muse
[to] display her fluttryng wing,/ And stretch her selfe at large from East to West."
Cuddie’s traditional labor is a means of attaining the “divine gift and heavenly instinct”
described in the argument. The poet must have divine inspiration, and he must labor to
get it and retain it. This idea is a significant departure from the assertion in the Argument
that says labor merely adorns divine inspiration. The apparent necessity of labor in the
process of producing poetry raises human agency from a mere accessory to major part of
the process.
An allegorical reading of “January” supports the essential role of human labor in
the poetic process. The first month finds Colin leading “forth his flock, that had bene
long ypent./ So faynt they woc, and feeble in the folde,/ That now unnethes their feete
could them uphold” (January 4-6). As a shepherd, Colin’s flock is his work; if the
shepherd is the poet, as Spenser makes Colin, then his poesy is analogous to his flock.
Colin’s sheep are so weak, his poetry so neglected, that they struggle merely to feed
themselves or return to a life of exercise. Just as the flock needs exercise to survive, so
does Colin’s poetic wit. By this allegorical reading, the poet must exercise his poetry to
keep it strong, and he must labor to use the divine gift of God's inspiration. In discussion
of Colin’s Poetry, Cuddie also refers to “peeced pyneons” which had they “bene not so in
plight,” Colin might fulfill his poetic ambitions (87). Hugh Maclean’s note on this
passage identifies the “peeced pyneons” as “imperfect, patched wings[,]” and EK’s
glosse calls them “unperfect skill” (422). Recalling the muse’s inspiration
metaphorically as her “fluttryng wing” in line 43, line 87 looks like a rebuttal to the
importance of the muse, using a similar winged metaphor.
While Spenser spends a great deal of “October” and “January” focusing on the
importance of human agency, his assertion that poetry is “no arte, but a divine gift and
heavenly instinct not to be gotten by labour and learning, but adorned with both”
continues to remain significant in determining the source of poetic wit (417). Throughout
“The Shepheardes Calender” the speakers struggle with poetic labor and the nature of the
muse, trying to figure the source of their poetry. Both labor and divine inspiration appear
to be necessary to poetry in “The Shepheardes Calender” and interrelated in their effects.
The reconciliation of the two is like a “heavenly instinct” that is bestowed by God and
predisposition’s one towards poetry. This “heavenly instinct” does not predestine the
poet; like any instinct neglected of exercise, it will atrophy, just as a house cat’s hunting
instinct is considerably dulls after years of comfort. So by the “divine gift” and
continuous labor may the poet produce good poetry, and promote himself to higher
genres.
The symbiotic relationship between the muse and the poet that appears in “The
Shepheardes Calender” continues in Spenser’s Commendatory Verse “To the Learned
Shepheard.” In the first stanza the speaker addresses the poet and gives a kind of
technical schematic for the interaction between the poet and the muse:
Collyn I see by thy new taken taske,
since sacred fury hath enricht thy braynes,
That leades thy muse in haughty verse to mask,
and loath the layes that longs to lowly swaynes.
That lifts thy notes from Shepheardes unto kings,
So like the lively Larke that mounting singes. (To the Learned Shepheard 1-5)
Collyn has taken up his new task because of the “sacred fury hath enricht [his] braynes”
suggesting that he has been inspired by some greater being to take up the new task
seemingly removing the power to create from the poet and ascribing to inspiration.
However, in the next line the power of human agency is restored. It is this “new taken
taske” that instigates the muse to aide him in his endeavor. Spenser’s speaker proposes
that the poet needs some “sacred fury” to advance, and that the poet must advance to
court the muse to joining his cause. The sacred fury might as well be inspiration
effecting the braynes but sacred suggests a divine, heavenly quality that this passage
implies the muse lacks. The muse, generally characterized as that which proposes poetry
to the poet, is led, in this passage, by human endeavor inspired by divine assistence. As
characterized here, the muse is much like salvation: it is ordained by the grace of God but
must be pursued to retain, advance and maintain it.
The salvation and inspiration connection is supported in the same poem when
Spenser connects Collyn, the poet, and Red Cross Knight and their successes in their
respective crafts. After illustrating Collyn’s success, Spenser says,
So mought thy Redcrosse knight with happy hand
victorious be in that faire Ilands right: (To the Learned Shepheard 25-26).
The reader knows that just as Red Cross Knight’s victory in battle is assured throughout
the “The Faerie Queene”, so is his salvation because Spenser writes the two as nearly
synonymous in the work. Spenser makes the connection between the success of the poet
and the success of Red Cross Knight obvious in this quotation, and in doing so reveals
the correspondence between poetic inspiration and salvation.
In the production of poetry, labor is essentially poetic virtue, while the divine gift
is equivalent if not identical to grace or God’s providence. The “heavenly instinct,” then
is analogous to salvation. The nature of poetic origins as described in “The Shepheardes
Calandar” is a kind of symbiotic relationship between the muse and the poet in which one
needs the other for either to be fully realized. The descriptions and incantations of the
Muse in “The Faerie Queene” suggest a relationship between the poet and the muse much
more like that of the Protestant and God.
In the proems to the first and sixth books of “The Faerie Queene” Spenser gives
invocations to his muse that characterize it and his relationship to it. Spenser calls his
muse “Ye sacred imps, that on Parnasso dwell,/ And there the keeping have of learnings
threasures,” (VI, Proem, 2.2-3). These imps on Parnassus are the classical muses who
aide pagan poets like homer and Virgil throughout their writings. Similarly, in the proem
to Book I, Spenser implies that cupid and Venus, Greek gods and classical symbols of
love, might succor his art. These, as a great many more references, illustrate Spenser’s
muse as identical to those classical muses, but Spenser complicates this idea throughout
his work. In the second stanza of the Proem to book 1 Spenser refers to the muse as the
“holy Virgin chiefe of nine,” (I, Proem, 2.1). Spenser befuddles the nature of the muse
by referring to her as Calliope, chief of the nine muses that sit on Parnassus, but also as a
“holy virgin.” Spenser suggests that, As a holy virgin, the muse has Christian virtue or
even a degree of divinity. The Holy Virgin Mary, while a catholic symbol, was touched
by some divine breath with her immaculate conception and birth of Christ, and neoplatonic ideals of the era would suggest that a virtuous and beautiful lady might inspire a
man to climb toward his salvation or in this case art.
This idea of the muse as a Christian figure is not limited to this line as the
Commendatory Verse “To The Learned Shephearde” has suggested. More convincing
then the language that describes the muse is Spenser’s interaction with the muse. In his
incantation prefacing the cantos of Book I Spenser reveals a subservience to and piety
before his muse, as if it were his savior or God. Spenser admits that
…[He] the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
[Is] now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds…(1.1-4)
In this admission, the reader can see that the poet is at the will of his muse. He is
compelled to change genres before he feels he is ready because the muse has changed his
oaten reed, a tool of the pastoral, to a trumpet, a tool of epic. Spenser shows that the
ability to climb to higher genres completely dependent on the muse, who, by inspiration
raises the poets level. The poet is a vehicle that carries out the will of the muse. Spenser
explicates on this suggestion in stanza 2 of the proem of book I when he asks “Helpe
then…/ Thy weaker Novice t performe thy will,/ Lay forth out of thine everlasting
scryne/ The antique rolles, which there lye hidden still…” (1-4). These lines point to
partnership between the muse and the poet in which the Muse “proposes and the poet
disposes” (Wolfe). That is to say that the poet writes for man what has always been
written in Heaven and in effect carries out the will of the muse, acting as little more than
a agent.
This interaction between muse and poet is strikingly similar to that of the Protestant and
the savior. The poet is graced by the muse, just as the Christian is by God, and carries
out the muse’s will as a result. The true christianity of the relationship is the poet’s desire
to carry out this will. In the second stanza Spenser asks the muse to help him carry out
her will. The way in which the poet asks the muse for help deepens the likeness of the
muse/poet relationship to the Protestant’s relationship to God. Throughout the proem to
the first book of “The Faerie Queene” Spenser asks for assistance because he is “too”
lacking of something or “too” flawed in some way. He calls himself a “Novice” in stanza
2 and asks for help for his “weake wit,” and asks the muse to “sharpen [his] dull tong”
(2.2,9). Similarly in the fourth stanza he asks the muse to “shed thy faire beems into my
feeble eyne,/ And raise my thoughts too humble and too vile…” (4.5-6). This intimation
of unworthiness and fallibility parallels Calvinist doctrine that says only through the
grace of God might human beings, vile and wicked by nature, attain any degree of
perfection and rise above their flawed status. The incantation of the muse in Book I
expresses an analogous sentiment: without the poetic grace of the muse, the poet is
incapable of creating poetry, carrying out the will of the muse or advancing genres. As a
result the muse is a savior of sorts if not an allegorical representation of the savior God.
The different descriptions of the muse are, to a great extent, reconciled in canto 10
of Book I when Heavenly contemplation takes Red Cross Knight to his mountain that is
described as “Such one, as that same mighty man of God,/… Dwelt fortie dayes upon;
where writ in stone/ With bloody letters by the hand of God,” or “like that pleasaunt
Mount, that is for ay/ Through famous Poets verse each where renownd,/ On which the
thrice three learned ladies play” (I, 10, 53,54). In both passages the mountain is a place
where divine inspiration resides. In the first it is inspiration from God himself as the Ten
Commandments were written in “bloody letters by the hand of God,” while in the second
passage the mountain is the seat of the classical pagan muses, Parnassus. By explicitly
describing the same mountain as both the location of Christian inspiration and pagan
inspiration suggests that the two are not necessarily distinct sources of inspiration but
identical. If they are in fact distinct sources they are close enough to one another that
one might be represented as the other without significant loss of characteristic. “The
Faerie Queene” supports this explanation where the pagan representation of the muse is
merely a figure allegorically signifying the divine inspiration of God’s Grace.
Edmund Spenser’s muse, as represented in “The Shepheardes Calander,” the
commendatory verse “To the Learned Shepheard” and “The Faerie Queene,” is
synonymous if not identical to the savior of his soteriology. Despite any description of
the muse as the pagan embodiments of inspiration, the interaction between the muse and
the poet is too similar to that of the Protestant and God to suggest that the muse might be
anything other than Spenser’s God. The divine nature of Spencer’s muse then elevates
his poetry to God’s work and his wit the tool by which to execute it.