Bill,
I think all of the resonances you mention are there in those famous
opening lines. Losing one's way (and then of course finding it
again) is an important part of the literal narrative of Book 1, but
also an important part of the allegory of Protestant-style
redemption. That which is lost (or represented as lost) and then
found again is also social and poetic status. That Spenser's Muse
formerly "masqued" in pastoral means, I think, not merely that she
engaged in one form of fiction-making and is now switching to
another, but also implies that she was in a sense only play-acting in
pastoral; in calling upon her poet to produce epic she is now
revealing her -- and his -- true (and noble) identity. By
representing the move from pastoral to epic as a wardrobe upgrade
thrust upon him by a gracious lady, Spenser associates his own upward
climb with that of Redcrosse, who, as we know from the Letter to
Raleigh, was a rustic in clownish clothing until acquiring a
second-hand, but venerable, set of armor. Of course in good family
romance fashion Redcrosse turns out to have a noble identity that he
recovers; Spenser can only hope he will fare as well.
Richard McCoy, in_Rites of Knighthood_, discusses Sidney's pose as a
shepherd knight in terms of ingratiating deference to the Queen whose
grace and favor must be recovered. By characterizing a period of
internal exile to his country estate as a "pastoral truancy" (to use
Bill's term) a high-level courtier like Sidney could simultaneously
confess his fault and present himself as ready to cast off pastoral
and return to court. It took quite a bit of chutzpah for Spenser to
insert himself into this nobleman's discourse, but in his artful mix
of Virgilian progression, pastoral withdrawal, Protestant
soteriology, and the traditional invocations of muses and patrons
Spenser makes it all sound rather natural. I think it's important to
remind ourselves how jarring this mix might be in the hands of a
lesser piper.
This has come out in a bit of a jumble, but I've argued at more
length along these lines in an essay called "Borrowed Armor / Free
Grace" (_SP_ 91.2 (1994): 136-66). I was not aware at the time of
the "losing one's way" definition and am grateful for the
enlightenment.
At 6:27 PM -0500 11/18/00, W.L. Godshalk wrote:
>What does Spenser mean when he says that his muse "did maske,/ . . . in
>lowly Shepheards weeds"? Does he mean that she masqueraded as a shepherd?
>That she was involved in a mask/masque?
>
>"Mask" could, in the 16th century, mean to "lose one's way." (I refrain
>from citing my source for this information, lest I be accused of being
>scholarly.) And that factoid leads me to think of Calidore's pastoral
>truancy. Could Spenser be hinting that his muse formerly lost her way in
>pastoral poetry?
--
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"Scholarship... It's where we're nearest to our humanness.
Useless knowledge for its own sake. Useful knowledge is
good too, but it's for the faint-hearted."
Housman, in Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love
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