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
