I had the same thought as Andrew, as a younger man, partly because my
edition of the poem, the Oxford Standard Authors one, with the thinness of
its pages, allows the back-to-back picture and dedication (of 60 words) to
bleed through to each other, so that "Morall vertues" on the recto
superimposes upon the word MAGNIFICENT (Arthur's unifying virtue) on the
verso; 1596 likewise superimposes upon the word FAME: that fame which takes
its purchase upon Eternity (compare "But stedfast rest of all things firmely
stayd / Vpon the pillours of Eternity, / That is contrayr to Mutabilitie:"
[MC.viii.2]). So the trick is to integrate the hopeful idea of the emblem
and with the funerary one of the emblematic typography. The author's name
-- "Ed. Spenser" (as on the title-page of "THE SECOND / PART OF THE / FAERIE
QVEENE") who is perhaps to be identified with the Madame Sperienza in the
first of the 3 Witty Letters -- is itself missing from the title page, but
the SPEI that will become Speranza in the First Book, and whose stedfast
eyes are unswervingly bent on (the hope of) heaven (I.x.14) might well
include the hope that is spoken for in the almost unique first person
utterance of the narrator at I.x.42, "Ah dearest God me graunt, I dead be
not defould," i.e., at the end of the stanza on the charitable engraving of
corpses in anticipation of their owners' needs at the resurrection of the
body before the Lord. The title page of the Calendar (in the same Oxford
Standard Authors edn.) is obviously worth comparing, the words "tvvelue
AEglogues proportional" (i.e., in analogical relation to) "to the twelue
moneths" being propotional themselves to the later title-page's words
"Disposed into twelue bookes, Fashioning XII. Morall vertues." But the
information on the Calendar's title page combines recto and verso of the
FQ's, i.e. the dedication is on the pages with the two twelves on it,
"Entitled TO THE NOBLE AND VERTV- / ous Gentleman most worthy of all titles
/ both of learning and cheualrie M. / Philip Sidney." The date at the
bottom of the page is 1579; Sidney died of mortal battle wounds in 1586 (the
gunshot wounds were not chivalric), and the dedication, viewed by the poet
thereafter, might well have seemed dated, or rather destined to live with
the eternity of Sidney's fame (or to die with its mutability), as opposed to
the immediate practical usefulness of the titled nobleman's patronage. The
Mutabilitie Cantos seem to acknowledge and anticipate the mortalilty of the
once and future Belphoebe, the one who will become an ensample dead. The
poet must help establish the fame of the goddess to whom his own survival as
a poet (he has some reason to hope) will attach. Conversely, the survival
of his poetry (they can hope) will make for the survival of the Queen's
fame. It is this hope that the dedication engraves.
-- jcn
On Sat, 9 Sep 2006 02:57:05 +0100
andrew zurcher <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Just a quick reply to Jim Nohrnberg's comment on the shape of the royal
>dedication in the 1596 edition of The Faerie Queene. I had never thought
>about it as a funeral urn, though I can see that now, assuming that it is
>standing on a sort of pedestal; and this makes wonderful sense of the
>content of the dedication.
>
> I had always seen something else, and I think I still see it. Flip back to
>the recto of the leaf, and Field's emblem of the anchor.
>
> At first I thought I was right, and Jim was wrong; then that Jim was
>right, and I was wrong; but now, at 2:53 a.m., I think I have good reasons
>for thinking that it's supposed to be ambiguous, a form that shifts between
>an anchor and an urn. (I shouldn't mention, but I will, that I also see a
>ship sailing directly at me, with the wind behind it.)
>
> Temper, temper.
>
> az
>
>
>
> Andrew Zurcher
> Tutor and Director of Studies in English
> Queens' College
> Cambridge CB3 9ET
> United Kingdom
> +44 1223 335 572
>
> hast hast post hast for lyfe
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
|
