Argument and “Representation” in The Faerie Queene, Book III

Abstract

Book III of The Faerie Queene is highly organized as to structure, so as to model and clarify the providential world it depicts. Through this formal architecture, it also sets forth an argument about its central virtue, chastity. The main division of the Book is into thirds: the first and last four-canto groupings (1–4, 9–12) feature Britomart, and the middle four-canto grouping, 5–8, is devoted to Belphoebe and Amoret, and to Florimell. In turn, analogies and contrasts organize each group. In the first group, for example, Britomart’s victories over non-generative, loveless Malecasta and Marinell (promiscuity, fearful virginity) flank her coming to terms with her own love and future lineage. These formal devices often do cognitive and evaluative work, since through contrast and analogy within his structure, Spenser defines chastity situationally. Marinell’s is the in malo form of virginity, juxtaposed with Belphoebe’s in bono form (cantos 4, 5); Belphoebe’s good, embowered virginity is juxtaposed with good, procreative sexuality in the Garden of Adonis (5, 6), then with the witch’s bad procreation (her son, her hyena-like beast, Snowy Florimell) and virginal Florimell’s frustrated love in 7 and 8. These dyads form a logical, Ramist kind of argument. In it, he uses two kinds of representation, not mutually exclusive, one being the embodying of a virtue or vice and the other, the championing of a virtue or vice. Such considerations elucidate the precise nature and ends of Spenser’s allegory.

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