The relation of Apollonius Rhodius' Talos to Spenser's
Talus is treated, somewhat glancingly, in AFQ 413-14, re
rock-throwing (at overseas invaders in the Argonautica),
metallurgy (and terminal bleeding), and fatal Medean
charms, but "animate hardware" is probably not as
troll-like as modern-day zombies. Merely offhand, the most
troll-like character in Spenser seems to me to be the
monster of filthy Lust in FQ IV vii-viii, but, as said,
that's just an unexamined guess.
There's an interesting passage on trolls in Sir James
Frazer, Golden Bough 3rd edn. vol. 10 (Part One of Baldur
the Beautiful), pp. 172-73, where a seasonal connection
can be made between trolls, seasonal limits, and
Shakespeare's Puck (see also Milton's lubber-fiend in
L'Allegro 101-114). (In Frazer the Scandinavian troll
called, in the latter day, Luther, is also of some
interest, though maybe not to a Protestant poet or
mythography....)
The Tick-Tock man reappears in Harlan Elison, "'Repent,
Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" (_Transformations:
Understanding World History Through Science Fiction_, ed.
Daniel Roselle [i973], pp. 161-76; and the thematic
relation of Book V to (the potential tyranny of)
timekeeping, punctuality, synchronization, regularity,
mechanization, etc. -- "the relation of justice to time"
-- is treated, mainly, in AFQ 402-05 and 407-09. But an
incubus (a figurative one, such as anxiety about debt or
the wages of sin) is not necessarily a troll -- Wagner's
abused and aggrieved Alberich, however, clearly is.
-- Jim N.
On Fri, 20 Jun 2014 17:43:48 +0000
Lauren Silberman <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> In The Argonautica of Apollonius there is a bronze man
>named Talus. A youthful Medea makes short work of him.
> L. Frank Baum has a mechanical, "clockwork" man called
>the Tik-Tock in one of his many sequels to The Wizard of
>Oz. He may well have had Spenser's Talus at least partly
>in mind. There is a rather Radigund-like figure in The
>Marvelous Land of Oz, named Jinjur. I published an
>article about it a number of years ago in Studies in
>Popular Culture (with some cool drawings by John Neill).
> It is sad to think how familiar Spenser was to popular
>authors of a century ago.
>
> Lauren
>
> -----Original Message-----
>From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of James
>C. Nohrnberg
> Sent: Friday, June 20, 2014 1:07 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Are there trolls in the FQ?
>
> "The three Billy Goats Gruff seem to be missing...":
> but see _Analogy of The FQ_, p. 772, on the alleged
>demonization of allegorical agents:
>
> A telling example in Spenser is Talus, who stands for
>"marital law," but acts like a medieval suit of armor
>that has been possessed by a demon. The figure belongs
>to gothic romance, though one may also compare the robots
>of science fiction, or the character known as the
>Incredible Hulk, who is found in the current [ca. 1965?]
>Superman comic books. Another example from the same
>legend in Spenser is Pollente. Pollente stands for
>"power," and he monopolizes a river-crossing; his is
>specifically the power localized in that juncture of the
>romance topography that we have elsewhere described by
>means of words like _threshold_ and _impasse_, and the
>associated concept of trespass. We might compare the
>limitary river-god Scamander in the _Iliad_, since the
>hero wrestles with him in the water; but Pollente and
>sons of Guizor are equally kin of the folktale
>bridge-troll in the story of Bill Goat Gruff. Like the
>bridge-troll, Pollente is a threshold-demon.
>
> See, in the Prose Edda's Skaldskaparmal, Old Norse vorth
>nafjarthar, "guardian of the [corpse?]-fiord," as an
>epithet or term for a troll, as provided by a
>self-describing one.
>
> -- Jim N.
>
> On Fri, 20 Jun 2014 10:47:00 +0100
> Penny McCarthy <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> The three Billy Goats Gruff also seem to be missing -
>>but there is
>>Grill. Penny On 20 Jun 2014, at 08:24, Roger Kuin wrote:
>>
>>> It's pleasing to see that the "Irregardless" school of
>>>criticism is
>>>alive and well. It reminds me of Brigid Brophy and "Fifty
>>>Works of
>>>English Literature We Can Do Without". Bite-size stanza
>>>nuggets about
>>>people and the sincerity of their feelings: das ist unser
>>>Spenser!
>>>
>>>
>>> On 20 June 2014 00:04, Quitslund, Beth
>>><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> I hope I'm not breaking a tacit consensus decision by
>>>the list to
>>>ignore this, but if not then it seemed worth knowing that
>>>The Faerie
>>>Queene is suffering what may well be a form of academic
>>>trolling in
>>>the Chronicle of Higher Education this week. Allan
>>>Metcalf, originally
>>>an Anglo-Saxonist but now a dialectician, is writing a
>>>series of blog
>>>posts about the poem which offer all of us some advice
>>>about editing
>>>and teaching it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Beth
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> P.S. In a possibly related note, there may be no trolls
>>>in the FQ,
>>>but it is in (sort of) the movie "Troll."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> OHIO UNIVERSITY
>>> Department of English
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Beth Quitslund
>>> Associate Professor & Faculty Senate Chair
>>>
>>> Ellis 381
>>> 1 Ohio University
>>> Athens OH 45701-2979
>>> T: 740.593.2829
>>> F: 740.593.2832
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> [log in to unmask]
> James Nohrnberg
> Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
> Univ. of Virginia
> P.O Box 400121
> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
|