Jim, readers of the passage you cite may well be prompted to think of
a proportional analogy between God's love and Una's, but then how
does the context affect-qualify-that thought? For one thing,the
dramatic effect of indirect discourse conveying her relief adds
poignancy to her misconstrual;it's the same "empassioned" narratorial
voice you encounter in the opening two stanzas of the canto. That
choric rhetorical touch only makes the moment sadder (with all the
complex gravity and unease that lurks in Spenser's use of "sad"). But
also terrifying, because of the dark irony of an episode centered on
Una's errancy. See the sensitive remarks of Paul Alpers cited in
Hamilton's gloss on the stanza.
Look also at the remarkable staccato of enjambments in the stanza;
they accentuate the tattoo of consoling rationalizations and thereby
intensify the pathos. It's the narrator's desire fusing with Una's,
seeking the protection of her heartfelt innocence, her willingness to
be deceived, and edging it with his own bitterness.
I can go with the idea that such a passage may express God's love for
his errant children so long as I'm allowed to believe that the
passage models and interprets a God who allows himself to experience
his agape as eros-to experience his love for his creatures in a
creaturely way, that is, as a fallible or (as they used to say)
"passible" yielding to the ambivalences of their love: "perst with so
great agonie"; "empassioned so deepe."
Harry
>Has anyone compared the love expressed in Una's search for Redcrosse to
>God's love for his errant children? I have looked in likely places but have
>not found the analogy--not even in Nohrnberg.
>
>Hamilton mentions a number of analogies:
>
> Wisdom, Truth, Faith, the Protestant Church, the Church Triumphant,
>the body of the Redeemed, the morning star of Revelation; yet
>she remains upon the literal level 'a goodly maiden Queene', a woman whom
>her lover possesses (Allegory in FQ, 88).
>
>On the literal level Una is also one who loves.
>
>Besides Hamilton and Nohrnberg, I have looked in Williams, Nelson, Fowler,
>Lewis (Images of Life, but not Allegory of Love), Kellogg and Steele,
>Fowler, and a couple of others I can't recall.
>
>A related question: Is there scriptural justification for the idea that God
>not only forgives our sins when we come to him but that he blots them out of
>his memory? I have heard that notion advanced but not in a very reliable
>context. The idea is not in the story of the Prodigal Son explicitly, but
>neither, it seems to me, does seeing it there distort the story.
>
>I have in mind Una's response to meeting Archimago disguised as Redcrosse:
>
> True is, that true loue hath no powre
> To looken backe; his eies be fixt before. (I.iii.30)
>
>Jim Broaddus
>
>Indiana State Univ. (retired)
>Route 3 Box 1037
>Brodhead, KY 40409
>606-758-8073
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