I can't help but think (as John Leonard apparently does) that this
'dead as living' debate is missing the obvious (I hope I shall be
allowed the expression without its being taken as an insult) meaning
of the phrase, and as a result is making a great deal of very
interesting interpretative effort which the simplest available
explanation would make unnecessary, and perhaps inappropriate.

I can't think that Spenser intended to subvert order for one thing;
and as for the expression giving away Rc's retrograde tendencies:
retrograde tendencies are not unique to RC or to any Christian,
however saintly, and for this reason, we'd need further pressure to
apply this particular phrase to the particular case of RC.  So that
with the respect due to Prof. Miller, I can't see a major theme
lurking here in ambiguities of syntax: major themes yes, hard-working
syntax, yes, but not ambiguous syntax.  And why should anything be
'too straightforward' (Prof Grossman) for Spenser -- for Spenser or
for we his all-too modern critics? In any case, the line is full
enough, hard-working enough and subtle enough in its
straightforwardness not to need additional twisting.

The simple and obvious is that his Lord is both dead and living:
living (not just alive, but also efficacious, that is, living to and
for RedCrosse) because dead.  And from the point of view of human
history, soteriology I mean, is living because he was *first* dead.

Here is an attempt to explain and justify this 'obvious' and 'simplest
available', which also alters this paraphrase somewhat:

The subject of 'him' in the line, 'And dead as living ...',  is 'whose'
in the previous line, which takes as its subject in turn, 'his dying
Lord' from its previous line.

'dying Lord': dying cannot be a verb, i.e., a present participle which
implies the temporary but present activity of dying, as in 'he is
dying', or a repeated activity treated as a state of affairs: i.e.,
who dies constantly over and over again -- though this is the task of
Christians, cf. 'I die daily' (St Paul).  

It must be an adjective: his Lord *who has the property of* dying (as
in 'It had a dying fall'); that is, more colloquially, but forsaking
Spenser's phrase: the Lord who did indeed die.  Now the aspect (of the
participle adjective) suggests (though it need not always do so) that
this property is not only continuous, but actually present: The Lord
who (now) possesses the property of having died: the Lord who (now)
has the property of dying.  The dying-ness, the property of dying,
possessed by this Lord is a present concern.

Now: 'dead as living' makes sense easily as: 

1.) the Lord who has died; that is, RedCrosse adores him in his
character as dead.  Which means, as it does for the non-divine
Christian, that he adores him as efficaciously alive; this Lord is
only alive because he is, or was, dead.  But he still possesses the
property of dying.  That is why it makes sense to talk of him as dead
(he is a dead Lord) rather than as simply alive.  The Anglican Church,
then as now, worships Christ *Crucified*, as well as other Christs so
to speak.

2.) It is sometimes necessary to make the distinction betwen the Lord who
has died, or 'is dead', which is his glory incidentally, his greatest
achievement, and the Lord who lives and who lived.

So that the 'living' has two meanings not in the least in
contradiction: 

2a.) Firstly: 'The risen Lord', the one who now lives, despite, or
better because of, his property of having died, of being the Lord who
died, of being the Lord who dies, the dying lord.

(Note that 'who died' is a non-Spenserian expression which places the
event firmly in the past, whereas 'dying Lord' places it firmly in the
contemporary present of the speaker, where generally Christian
theology has agreed it belongs; while the non-Spenserian expression
'who dies' exactly suggests, and wrongly of course, the repetitive
activity which the participle adjective 'dying' turns into a state of
affairs or being, a characteristic of the Lord, not a series of
activities performed by him: he died once and for all).

2b.) Secondly:  'the Lord whose life (as living) is recorded in the New
Testament', and who it is that the Christian knows most intimately and
adores most concretely.  

RedCrosse adores both the Lord risen in heaven whose property it is to
die or have died, and the Lord who lived among men, and whose words
they heard and whose body they handled and so on (St John).

I hope I got all that right.  All this accords with Nelson (pp 147
ff), I think.

As to 'now' (Dr Sharon-Zisser):  I agree, generally, that Spenser,
generally, disallows the 'now' its possibility, an important point -- but
the grammar does not specify which 'now', except that it is a 'now' for
the speaker, who phrases himself as he does because he has entered
Rc's now -- whenever that is.

In any case, what ever the merits of all this: 'living as dead' (see
Dr Catherine Addison's post) certainly wouldn't do: the 'dead' is too
final and has no after-death behind it: besides it suggests idolatry,
to say nothing of despair (or Duessa's misconceptions -- See
Prof. Nohrnberg's posts).  'Living as dead' and similarly syntaxed
phrases are, however, rightly applied to mere mortals this side of
eternity, as Nohrnberg's FN 154 points out.  So that, with reference
to Prof. Prescott's phrase, 'dead as living' actually privileges the
word 'living' not the word 'dead'.  In any case, RC can't adore a
really 'dead' Lord, because he hopes for help from him (ln 6).

'As', incidentally, means 'as well as'; it could mean 'because' i.e.,
he is dead because he is living, or living ever -- but this makes
nonsense of the phrase.  It could also mean: he adores a dead Lord 'as
if that Lord is' living: which is quite true, right and proper on the above
interpretation.  Paraphrasing 'as' with 'as if he were' suggests all
sorts of conditional doubts and unreal possibilities:  and I would
suggest that this is one reason why Spenser didn't.


Julian

J.B. Lethbridge
University of Tuebingen






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