Fascinating, Tom. Wish I had read your post before posting my own. Not sure if anyone has been written on Malacasta in relation to Spanish casta, but that seems like a very worthy topic to consider. To what extent does religious degradations and denigration (blackening)--i.e. Catholicism--correspond with bodily degradations and denigration--e.g., Irishness and Spanishness. Scott's comments remind us that black skin was understood via the Ham story as a marker of degeneration from an originary whiteness.
Also a fascinating point that Una is clothed with the sun, especially since Lucifera is described as
A mayden Queene, that shone as Titans ray,
In glistring gold, and peerelesse pretious stone:
Yet her bright blazing beautie did assay
To dim the brightnesse of her glorious throne,
As enuying her selfe, that too exceeding shone. .
Spenser may be doing his characteristic in bono/in malo thing, but as you suggest, Tom, Una's whiteness becomes all the more curious and complicated to parse in light of this and the other colours associated her (also see Kathryn Wall's post).
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