The place of fortune in romance is 
treated in Fortune and Romance: 
Boiardo in America, ed. Jo Ann Cavallo 
and Charles Ross (Medieval and 
Renaissance Text Society, Arizona 
State University Press. 1998), wherein 
is “Orlando’s Opportunity: Chance, 
Luck, Fortune, Occasion, Boats and 
Blows in Boiardo’s Orlando 
Innamorato,” pp. 31-75.  (Boethius' 
Consolation, Petrarch's Remedies for 
Fortune, Boccaccio's De Casibus, 
Erasmus' Adagia, etc. are variously 
cited.)

It is claimed there's an analogy 
between providence and/or grace in 
Spenser's Bk. I, and fortune in his 
Bk. VI, in the following paragraphs 
(though in these comparisons it is 
sometimes the differences that 
resemble each other!):

There are signs that the sixth book is 
touched by the same providence [as the 
providence and prevenient grace 
serving Redcrosse in Book I]. Calidore 
wishes that the heavens had graced him 
with a low degree (VI.ix.28). It is 
perhaps heaven's grace that provided 
help for the infant Pastorella; now 
the heavens have graced her mother 
with the same child's return—"The same 
is yonder Lady, whom high God did 
save," says the nurse (VI.xii.8; 
16-17). The Graces themselves have 
favored Colin; he in turn graces his 
mistress. She is "a goddesse graced / 
With heauenly gifts from heuen first 
enraced" (VI.x.20; 25). Even the 
cannibals prove susceptible, in their 
way; they decide to devote Serena to 
their god, "since by grace of God she 
there was sent" (VI.viii.38). [fn] 101

[fn] 101 The power of fortune is in no 
way minimized in Book VI: on the 
contrary, the eventual triumph of 
Mutabilitic seems to be in the making 
throughout. Fortune has undone the 
victim of Maleffort (VI.i.41), brought 
the Salvage Man to aid Serena 
(Vi.iv.2), fulfilled the prophecy 
about Sir Bruin's son (Vl.iv.35), 
caused Serena's capture by thieves and 
allowed her release (VI.viii.34, 46), 
discovered Pastorella to Meliboe 
(VI.ix.14), exposed her to the tiger's 
attack and the brigands (VI.x.34, 38), 
and caused her rescue by Calidore and 
her return to her parents (VI.xi.8, 
xii.20); and it is "chance" that has 
saved Calcpine from Turpine 
(VI.iii.51). Meliboe teaches that the 
riches of the temperate mind allow 
each to "fortunize" his life 
(Vl.ix.30), and thus to neutralize 
want, or perhaps more broadly, 
vicissitude. [AnFQ 698-99]








On Sun, 24 Jul 2011 14:36:22 -0400
  "Reid Robert L." <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:
> Stuart,
> Besides the fine discussion in Jon 
>Quitslund's SSF, there is Michael 
>Steppat's Chances of Mischief: 
>Variations of Fortune in Spenser 
>(1990), and Judith Anderson's helpful 
>review of that book.
> 
> Robin Reid
> 
> ________________________________
>From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List 
>[[log in to unmask]] On 
>Behalf Of [log in to unmask] 
>[[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 9:36 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Fortune / Providential 
>Design in Book VI of FQ
> 
> Dear Stuart,
> 
> You are on to something with your 
>observation that "fortune" is more 
>frequently mentioned in Book VI than 
>in the other Books.  I am not so 
>sure, however, that world-view in VI 
>is very different from Spenser's 
>conceptual framework in the preceding 
>Books.
> 
> You may be helped by some passages 
>in my book, Spenser's Supreme Fiction 
>(Toronto, 2001).  In particular I 
>would refer you to chapter 5, "Nature 
>in The Faerie Queene: Concepts and 
>Phenomena" (pp. 133-83); pp. 150-55 
>interpret some references to "fate" 
>and "fortune," and prior to that 
>there's a discussion of Providence 
>and Necessity.  I don't discuss the 
>references to Fortune in Book VI; 
>there's plenty left to say.
> 
> In that part of my book I'm not 
>concerned with sources, but I concur 
>with others that Boethius is 
>pertinent to Book VI -- and to FQ in 
>general.
> 
> In some places -- and this may be 
>especially true in Book VI, where the 
>author's voice and values are often 
>in the foreground -- references to 
>fortune and locutions such as "it 
>fortuned" serve, I think, as masks 
>for Spenser's sly or playful 
>assertions of his control over the 
>narrative.
> 
> Best wishes, Jon Quitslund
> 
> --- On Fri, 7/22/11, Stuart Hart 
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>From: Stuart Hart 
><[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Fortune / Providential 
>Design in Book VI of FQ
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Friday, July 22, 2011, 2:59 PM
> 
> Dear colleagues,
> whilst rereading 'The Legend of 
>Courtesy', it struck me that the noun 
>'fortune' is used more often in Book 
>VI than in any other of the previous 
>ones. Indeed, it is used on 32 
>occasions, whereas in Book I, it 
>appears only twelve times.
> 
> The idea of fortune seems a 
>recurring motif throughout the book. 
>At VI.iii Calepine is saved by the 
>Salvage Man. We read that this is by 
>‘wondrous chaunce’ (VI.iii.51.6) and 
>‘fortune, passing all foresight’ 
>(VI.iv.2.1.). A similar episode 
>occurs in the same canto when 
>Calepine is wandering through the 
>woods having recovered from his 
>wound. On this particular occasion, 
>his attention is drawn to the ‘scrike 
>and squall’ of a ‘litle babe’ who has 
>been captured by a ‘cruell Beare’ and 
>is seized ‘Betwixt his bloodie iawes’ 
>(VI.iv.17-18). The infant’s 
>‘shrieches shrill’ are said to pierce 
>Calepine’s ‘hart with pities point’. 
>Subsequently, the ‘bold knight’ thus 
>courageously attempts to rescue the 
>helpless infant. Nearby he notices a 
>‘ragged stone, | Which lay thereby 
>(so fortune him did ayde)’ 
>(VI.iv.21). He collects this stone 
>and then bravely approaches the bear 
>and ‘thrust it all attone | Into his 
>gaping throte, that made him grone | 
>And gaspe for breath’.  In his 
>desperation, the bear relinquishes 
>the baby, and so it is saved. 
>Spenser’s parenthesis at VI.iv.21.3 
>encourages us to believe that yet 
>again fortune is the key factor in 
>this successful outcome. It is down 
>to chance, or rather the 
>capriciousness of life that the stone 
>was at hand for Calepine to use. Book 
>Six is scattered with many such 
>instances of how arbitrary luck is 
>seen to benefit characters at key 
>times.
> 
> However, it would be wrong to think 
>that for Spenser, fortune is always 
>advantageous. At VI.ii.27, we 
>discover that it is also responsible 
>for Tristram’s peripeteia. Despite 
>being ‘Briton borne’ and the ‘Sonne 
>of a King’, he has his ‘countrie […] 
>forlorne, | And lost the crowne, 
>which should […] [his] head by right 
>adorne’. Due to ‘fortune’, his uncle 
>has supplanted him, and he is left a 
>fugitive seeking refuge in the woods. 
>This is not untypical in Book Six as 
>fortune is often blamed for the 
>vicissitudes of life. Spenser often 
>highlights these instances through 
>his use of epithets. At VI.viii.34.8, 
>Serena is said to be the victim of 
>‘False Fortune’ as she is captured by 
>the saluage nation whilst sleeping. 
>Equally, we are told that it is 
>Calidore’s ‘ill fortune’, which is 
>responsible for the sudden 
>disappearance of the graces 
>(VI.x.20.7), whilst at VI.xii.37.7 he 
>speaks of ‘fortunes wrackfull yre’. 
>In other parts of the book, epithets 
>are used to describe her as 
>‘tempestuous’ (I.vii.25.1), ‘wilde’ 
>(I.vii.1.2.), ‘fickle’ (I.ix.44.8) 
>and ‘wicked’ (III.ii.44.1). At 
>V.iii.1.7. Spenser refers to her 
>‘spight’, and at I.vii.16.8 of her 
>‘cruell freakes’. At other times in 
>Book Six, fortune is personified as 
>being awkward and unhelpful. At 
>VI.viii.10.1. ‘Fortune aunswered not 
>vnto […] [Arthur’s] call’, whilst at 
>VI.viii.15.5 it failed to ‘conspire’ 
>with Disdain’s ‘will’. Moreover, at 
>VI.ix.31.5 its punishing nature is 
>suggested through Calidore’s 
>reference to ‘stormes of fortune and 
>tempestuous fate’.
> 
> The use of fate was clearly a 
>recurring motif in the Romance genre, 
>and served as a narrative device that 
>helped shape the sequence of events. 
>However, I suspect that many of 
>Spenser's Early Modern readers would 
>have seen these instances of fate as 
>a reflection of the ways in which the 
>universe is ordered by providential 
>design.
> 
> My question to the list is whether 
>any one knows of any particular 
>primary sources that Spenser may have 
>drawn from in his depiction of 
>fortune, especially theological ones. 
>Moreover, does anyone have a 
>knowledge of any relevant critical 
>texts that would be of interest. 
>Richard McCabe's 'Pillars of 
>Eternity' has a particualrly good 
>chapter on Providence in Spenser, 
>however I'd be grateful to hear of 
>others.
> 
> Many thanks as always,
> 
> Stuart Hart
> PhD researcher
> University of Birmingham
> England.

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James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121