| dc.description.abstract | As early as 1580 marriage was a central theme of Edmund Spenser's poetry. In a letter to Gabriel Harvey, in that same year, Spenser spoke of his plan for the Epithalamion Thamesis, a poem which would describe in elaborate detail the wedding ceremony of the River Thames. Much of Spenser's poetry contains a marriage theme, for inherent in his concept of marriage was the idea. that this sacrament was the right fulfillment of love according to both natural and divine law. In the Faerie Queene marriage becomes his central symbol to express the reconciliation of opposites: integrity and love, chastity and pleasure, mercy and justice, the One and the many, Christ and His Church, God and man. The following study limits its consideration to the accounts of four betrothals and marriages in the Faerie Queene, and the meaning which such unions imply concerning the Renaissance traditions of marriage. Chapter I, therefore, traces the general patterns of the marriage theme in Renaissance literature. Chapter II focuses upon the betrothal of Red Crosse and Una and the religious implications in their union; Chapter III treats only the political implications of Britomart and Artegall; Chapter IV traces on the cosmic level the betrothal and marriage of Marinell and Florimell; Chapter V discusses the ethical implications of the betrothal between Calidore and Pastorella. A secondary concern of the study is Spenser's poetic technique, which often lends itself to an iconographical interpretation. The iconography in turn adds meaning to the thematic study of marriage on the religious, political, cosmic, and ethical levels. Such an inquiry, it is hoped, will throw light upon the multiple meanings of marriage in Spenser's Faerie Queene, and upon his synthesis of Renaissance and Reformation, Platonism and Christianity, flesh and spirit. | |
