On Friday, October 10, 2003, at 11:39 AM, Jean Goodrich wrote:
>
> In addition to the Hobgoblin/Hobbinol word play that you've mentioned, I
> also wonder if there isn't a suggestion that, in Harvey's opinion,
> Spenser
> had abandoned the learned and classical sources for peasant folklore?
> Hobgoblin and trickster figures seem more the stuff of popular tales
> than
> aristocratic romance or classical tradition. And that is the only way I
> can
> imagine I myself might have linked "Hobgoblin" with "nursery," since it
> would
> have been lower class nursemaids employed to care for the children of
> the
> wealthy, and telling "fairy stories" to pass the time. Spenser and
> Harvey
> would not themselves have had such a nursemaid, but certainly "old
> wives'
> tales" already had a dubious reputation (cf. Juliet's Nurse, for
> example).
> Well, at least that's the argument I would like to make. 8^)
Mary Ellen Lamb's interpretation of the "hobgoblin" comment is
sympathetic to yours, I think.
Here's the relevant passage from her article in Worldmaking Spenser (ed.
Patrick Cheney and Lauren Silberman, University Press of Kentucky,
2000), "Gloriana Acrasia, and the House of Busirane: Gendered Fictions
in The Faerie Queene as Fairy Tale"--apologies for the length!
"In addition to the fairy queen, pining mortal lovers, changeling
children, and dancing immortals, The Faerie Queene includes many other
elements easily recognizable from fairy tales: elves, dwarves, evil
witches, ogres, giants, loyal lions, and birds that carry mysterious
jewels.
It was this fairy tale aspect of an early drafted portion of
Spenser's epic that his friend Gabriel Harvey simply could not fathom.
His often-quoted letter to Spenser records his shock at Spenser's
decision to write an epic that included a fairy queen: 'If so be the
Faery Queene be fairer in your eie than the Nine Muses, and Hobgoblin
runne away with the Garland from Apollo: Marke what I saye, and yet I
will not say that I thought, but there an End for this once, and fare
you well, till God or some good Aungell putte you in a better minde'
(Harvey 628). Often this passage is interpreted in terms of the conflict
between a native and a classical tradition; but the extent of his
disapproval suggests that something more is at stake. Beginning with
'Marke what I say' to 'fare you well,' Harvey's incredulity verges on
incoherence. The two forms of narratives were not merely mutually
exclusive; Harvey's confidence in the absolute superiority of the
classical tradition is exceeded only by his unapologetic contempt for a
tradition including a fairy queen and hobgoblins. Praying that no less a
force than God or an angel might put Spenser 'in a better minde,' Harvey
washes his hands of the entire project. Rather than dismiss Harvey's
response as the idiosyncratic blindness of an insensitive pedant, I
would claim that his contempt for the fairy queens and hobgoblins of
fairy tales was a widespread phenomenon. Accounting for the strength of
Harvey's disapproval, as well as recognizing its deeper cultural
sources, is crucial for understanding the gendered nature of Spenser's
poetic project" (83).
If I remember correctly, Dr. Lamb recently put out a call for papers on
folkloric/fairy tale traditions in early modern literature (or was it
Spenser specifically?), but I can't seem to find the e-mail now.
Kathryn Evans
UC Berkeley
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