Spenser’s Method of Grace in the Legends of Holiness, Temperance, and Chastity
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Authors
Miller, Rachel A.
Issue Date
2020-05
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Academic theses , Arthurian romances , European literature--Renaissance , Faerie queene (Spenser, Edmund) , Grace (Theology) , Spenser, Edmund, 1552?-1599 , Theology
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Abstract
The knights Redcrosse, Guyon, and Scudamour from The Faerie Queene are tasked with quests that curiously do not depend on wit or strength. Rather, the quests depend on each knight’s virtue and his acceptance of grace, the supreme virtue for Spenser. Through the wanderings of each knight, Spenser shows that there is a method of grace fashioned specifically for each knight’s quest both physical and spiritual that always requires the knights to reject false images of grace in exchange for God’s true grace. Grace will not abandon Gloriana’s knights, but as Guyon and Scudamour’s stubborn rejection of this virtue teaches, when grace is rejected, divine harmony, the loving cooperation between God and humanity that Redcrosse glimpses at the end of his quest, will be broken and replaced with fear and all the vices that follow it.
Keyword 1: The Faerie Queene -- Keyword 2: Arthurian Literature -- Keyword 3: Theology -- Keyword 4: Edmund Spenser -- Keyword 5: Grace -- Keyword 6: Renaissance Literature
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This dissertation is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, revised in 1976). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgement. Use of the materials for financial gain with the author's expressed written permissions is not allowed.