As said: 'The brood of Spenser's pelican-like Error seems to be bred or
nourished on something like the coalblack poetical antithesis of "the most
pure and most chaste blood of the Virgin" or Mother, even if that brood is
also (on the analogy of the worms bred in and of the Nile mud or its
"fertile slime" [I.i.21]) as it were virginally conceived.' In other words,
I think the connection or opposition is between the destruction of a
Pythoness and the generation of an Apollonine female ephebe. See Joseph
Fontenrose, Python. This is to revert to the "mythical," as is done in the
following passage: "Where there is no differentiation between the figure
and its significance, and where the significance is unrecognizable except in
the figure, we relapse into the portentous yet inexplicable world of the
unawakened dreamer and the uncritical religionist. The mental processes
belonging to such a state are neurotic or superstitious, or characterzed by
archaic or atavisitic identifications: in terms of the opeing of Spenser's
first book an overcharged realm of shrouded females, terrible mothers,
treacherous sccubae, and bleeding trees--which are nothing else." (AFQ
102). If Error is read as (or originates as, or regresses into) such a
"terrible mother" as is invoked here, then the same "archaeological"
approach will presumably assert that Belphoebe is something like the
opposite "sexual persona," a la the description of her or her types in such
a classically informed as author Camille Paglia, and going back to, say,
Jane Ellen Harrison in Themis, or Robert Graves in The White Goddess, or, in
line with what has been earlier said about Ps. 110, the Virgin Mary in
Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex. This is not strictly an answer, of
course, but more like an observation on the term "allusion"--or an escape
hatch from an allegoresis-style reading of it. The terrible mother, to
recapitulate, is opposed to the highly mystified one who fosters high
ideals, brave deeds, a celibate example, and whose honor is her child, "the
daughter of her Morne" (III.v.51). -- Jim N.
On Fri, 3 Feb 2006 12:08:33 -0800
"Harry Berger, Jr." <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> My colleague, Jody Greene, notes several reminiscences in III.vi of the
>scene with Error in I.i (for example, III.vi.8-9 and 35-36), and wonders
>whether the reference to blood-sucking in III.vi.5 reminds anyone else of
>Error's brood. And if so, what to do with these allusions?
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
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