I agree that these are very important questions for the interpretation of
Book One, but I think (especially given the dominant position of Calvinism
in Elizabethan salvation theology) that we need to distinguish carefully
between RC's election and his conversion. All those who are to be saved in
the end are elect from the beginning; but the elect live as sinners until
they experience conversion and the start of the process of regeneration. So
it wouldn't make sense to suggest that RC becomes one of the elect at any
point in the story other than 'before the beginning', but it is a salient
question to ask when in his story he experiences conversion and begins to
live as one of the faithful. I have a chapter on this in my book
"Self-Interpretation in The Faerie Queene" (Boydell and Brewer, 2006) in
which I discuss Gless's interpretation and others. In a nutshell, I think
that the different possible moments of conversion identified by Gless are
not due to vagueness on Spenser's part or a desire to let the reader decide
but are a very specific representation of the different models of salvation
offered by Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, and that the former is
represented as a false version of Christianity, the latter as the truth. In
more concrete terms, Redcross complacently regards himself from the
beginning of the story as one of the faithful, but doesn't experience true
(=Protestant) conversion until he comes to the gates of despair in canto 9,
where he is made to see the vanity of his own works and that the one and
only thing that can truly save him is the fact of having been chosen for
salvation by God ("Why shouldst thou then despair, that chosen art?"). The
moment of conversion consists in receiving a true and lively faith in God's
having elected him for salvation from the beginning. Up till that point,
all his supposed 'faith' is actually mere self-righteousness, the most
dangerous form of spiritual pride.
Paul Suttie
On Apr 4 2008, Reid Robert L. wrote:
>Darryl Gless suggests locating "the all-important divine call before the
>beginning of RCK's quest, or at the moment when Arthur rescues him from
>Orgoglio's prison, or at the end of canto ix when he seems consciously
>to accept the doctrine of predestined election" (Interpretation &
>Theology in Sp. 145). Gless's reference to "Readers who accept the
>knight's armor as prima facie evidence of his prior election and
>calling" (55) recalls Padelford's comment on the tall clownish young man
>who, "when clad in the armor of a Christian man, 'seemed the goodliest
>man in al that company,' so recreated was he by the grace of God." When
>does RC receive his call?Abandoning Una (& thus his faith, however
>"immature or untried") assumes an earlier call.
>
>
>
>Jim Broaddus' questioning the precise timing of the "call" seems
>important, and Darryl Gless's nice list of options recalls other
>repetitious features of the moral/religious allegory (why do allegorical
>figures of "pride" reappear so persistently, yet in such intriguingly
>varied forms?). The question of when the clownish hero was "called"
>might be connected with the Reformation's much-debated question of when
>to be "baptized" (before, or during, the conscious quest)... & the even
>more intensely and anxiously debated question of whether (and when) one
>can be assured of being "saved." Wasn't it G.K. Chesterton who replied
>to a puritan questioner, "Yes sir. I have been saved, I am being saved,
>and I shall be saved." So perhaps the answer is all of the above, with
>the hotline always vulnerable to being again shut down, or again
>renewed. Even at the very end of the Legend of Holiness it seems RCK is,
>once again, answering a calling to renew the quest that, as David Miller
>argues, is always challenged and incompletely answered.
>
>Yet, having said that, it seems that Spenser's series of moments (and
>types) of divine call (as listed by Gless) are not simply repetitious
>but form a carefully-structured sequence which DOES offer a rough
>simulacrum of completeness. The defeat of Orgoglio, Despair, and the
>Dragon offer a holistic pattern that matches the three stages of the
>house of Holiness. Thus it seems that the structured pattern of types of
>calling, answering stages of spiritual need in the life-quest, is
>important.
>
> Robin Reid
>
>
|