When did "white" become a term through which people describe their own ethnic/racial identity or that of others? Iago clearly sees Othello as "black", but did he think of himself as "white"? I have all the TCP texts on my computer and wrote a little Python script that looks for all occurrences where the adjective 'white' is followed by 'man', 'woman', 'child', 'person', 'people'. There does not appear to be a single occurrence of such a bigram in 5,200 texts before 1610.
Assuming that my search was accurate and complete--not a totally safe assumption--the lexical evidence should make you skeptical about claiming a 'racialized' component in the meaning of 'white' in the Faerie Queene or any other text of that period. Which is not to say that there was no racism in that world--there clearly was. Italian has the lovely word 'tintura' as a technical term for the tonal colouring of a work (the opening of Verdi's Simone Boccanegra is a stupendous example). So we might think of the 'tintura' of a word and of ways in which it changes over time. 'White' is a heavily racialized word in our world, but I doubt whether it was racialized at all in Spenser's world.
To question a racializing tintura of 'white' in the 16th century is not to question the fact that Spenser more than once " associate[s] sexual excess and perversion with foreign locals, religions, and peoples." He certainly did. Whether he did so more often or in different ways than others is an open question. There is a long history of such behaviour going all the way back to Herodotus (who probably was a more tolerant person than Spenser). Una's spectacular whiteness is adequately accounted for by the opposition of night and day. Think of Milton's sonnet about his "late espoused saint" with its play on 'white', 'light', and 'night'.
On 7/17/18, 5:20 PM, "Sidney-Spenser Discussion List on behalf of Kathryn Walls" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote:
If I may interject once more: Una's whiteness is completely obscured by her "blacke stole". This associates her with the bride in the Song of Songs, who is "blacke . . . but comely". In his sermon on the Song of Songs, Beza identifies the bride's blackness and mourning with sin and guilt, with which even the elect are infected. Her comeliness (which is her whiteness in Spenser) he identifies with the innocence bestowed upon the elect by Christ (Spenser's white lamb), the divine innocence which covers our sinfulness from the sight of a loving God. See Master Bezaes sermons vpon the three chapters pf the canticle of canticles, trans. John Harmar (Oxford: Joseph Barnes, 1587). Beza anticpates Spenser in representing both blackness and beauty as garments.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dennis Britton
Sent: Wednesday, 18 July 2018 9:53 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Faerie Queene and Race: Book 1
A lively discussion has begun on Twitter. Kim posted what I think is an important question that I believe would be useful to consider here:
Beginning with Melissa Sanchez's assertions that Spenser more than once "associate[s] sexual excess and perversion with foreign locals, religions, and peoples," Kim asked, "It seems worth asking from the start the extent to which the moral encoding of figures in the FQ is embodied and racialized--and particularly important if we are to begin understanding the embodied terms of Spenser's religious allegory. How do we understand, then, the spectacular whiteness of Una? She rides "Upon a lowly Asse more white than snow, / Yet she much whiter," and tows "in line a milke white lamb" (I.i.4).
Does Una have a racial identity? Do the race (and gender) of allegorical figures matter?
Also, don't forget to join the conversation on Twitter! #TeamFQandRace
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