Spenser and Biblical Poetics

by Kaske, Carol V.

• ISBN13: 9780801436796
• ISBN10: 0801436796
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

Carol V. Kaske examines how the form, no less than the theology, of Spenser's writings reveals the influence of the Bible and medieval and Renaissance Biblical hermeneutics. Her approach partakes of both the old historicism and the new.

Spenser and Biblical Poetics is the first comprehensive account of the contradictions and inconsistencies in Spenser's imagery -- particularly in The Faerie Queene. These and his well-known contradictions in doctrine Kaske accepts and celebrates. She shows that Spenser challenges the reader with problems arising from his endorsement of both Protestant and Catholic traditions. She connects Spenser's contradictory style not only with such religious topics (for example, adiaphorism) but also with secular ones such as colonialism, the conflict between nature and culture, and the policies of the Queen. Spenser and Biblical Poetics makes an indispensable contribution to the history of reading in the Renaissance.

Author Biography

Carol V. Kaske is Professor of English at Cornell University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Note on Texts and Transliteration	xi
Abbreviations	xiii
Introduction	1	(8)
Spenser's Bible	9	(9)
Versions	10	(2)
The Book of Psalms	12	(1)
Apocrypha	13	(1)
Commentaries	14	(1)
The Four Allegorical Senses	15	(1)
Typology	16	(2)
Structure, Meaning, and Images Repeated in bono et in malo	18	(47)
The Practice of ``Distinguishing'' Repeated Images in the Bible	23	(4)
Distinctions in bono et in malo in the Bible, in the Distinctiones, and in Spenser: Fasting, Birds, Altars, and Glory	27	(8)
Modern Critics and Imagistic Variation: Dragons and Serpents, Cities and Mountains	35	(6)
Distinguishing Eucharistic Cups	41	(10)
Propaedeutics to Spenser's Method in the Preceding and Surrounding Culture	51	(8)
What Difference Does It Make?	59	(6)
Images That Correct Their Predecessors	65	(33)
Propositional Contradictions and Their Resolutions	98	(60)
Background: The Views of Exegetes and of Spenser about Contradictions in Scripture	102	(9)
Contradictions That Mainline Protestants Could Reconcile as Tropes	111	(1)
Equivocation	111	(10)
Correction	121	(10)
Supplementation	131	(1)
Paradox	132	(3)
Two Contrasting Halves	135	(6)
Irreconcilable Contradictions: Free Will and Justification	141	(17)
The Episode of the Nymph's Well: Corrective Images, Paradoxes of Law, and Tapinosis	158	(25)
More Paradoxes: Mordant, Amavia, the Cup, and the Well: (II.i.35--61)	159	(5)
Indecisions and Corrections (II.ii.1--9)	164	(6)
Celebrations (II.ii.10--11)	170	(13)
Conclusion	180	(3)
Appendix One: Statistics on Availability of Sources at Cambridge	183	(3)
Appendix Two: Images Repeated in bono et in malo and Treated in This Book	186	(3)
Works Cited	189	(10)
Index of Scripture References	199	(2)
Index of Spenser References	201	(2)
General Index	203