The Feminine Reclaimed: The Idea of Woman in Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton

286 Pages·1986·14.33 MB·English

by  Stevie Davies

The Feminine
Reclaimed
THE IDEA OF WOMAN IN
SPENSER, SHAKESPEARE
AND MILTON
Stevie Davies
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY
Copyright © 1986 by Stevle Davies
Published by the University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky
Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
Printed in Great Britain by Anchor Brendon Ltd, Tiptree, Essex
Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0024
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davies, Stevie.
The feminine reclaimed.
Previously published as: The idea of woman in
Renaissance literature. 1986.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. English literature—Early modern, 1500-1700—
History and criticism. 2. Women in literature.
3. Spenser, Edmund, 1552P-1599—Characters—Women.
4. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616—Characters—Women.
5. Milton, John, 1608-1674—Characters—Women.
I. Title.
PR429.W64D38 1986 82O'.9'352O42 85-22482
ISBN 0-8131-1589-2
For Harry and Monica Davies
So seemd those two, as growne together quite

Contents
Preface ix
Note on Texts and Abbreviations xii
1. Introduction 1
2. Spenser 37
The Four Graces 37
Britomart to Florimell 55
Diana and Venus 77
Art and Amoret 93
3. Shakespeare 105
Hamnet and Judith 105
Isis and Ceres 120
Marina and Eleusis 129
The Temple of Demeter Hermion 152
Woman as Magus 165
4. Milton 175
Deborah 175
The Muse and the Maenads 186
Mother Earth 221
Ceres and Proserpina 231
Notes 248
Select Bibliography 262
Index 266
VII

Preface
The considerable scope of a work such as this required a principle
of selection in order to avoid the twin dangers of being
overwhelmed by seas of generalisation on the one hand or
mountains of detail on the other. I have therefore limited my
study to consideration of three Renaissance English poets—
Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton—choosing within their works
areas which seemed to me comparable both in the material out of
which they are shaped and in the manner of treatment. My book
concentrates on Book III of Spenser's Faerie Queene,
Shakespeare's tragi-comedies, especially Pericles and The Winter's
Tale, and certain areas of Milton's Paradise Lost, though I have
naturally referred to other parts of the authors' works, other
poets, and multitudinous background works to elucidate the
traditions in which I felt that 'the feminine' (defined in a
specialised way for the purposes of this book) was 'reclaimed' for
Renaissance literature. The title of my book was intended to
disclose a Platonist nuance. This is the Idea, not just the idea, of
woman, a person made of air or thought, real on paper and in the
mind's eye rather than representative of everyday experience in
an imagined Golden Age.
I am aware that in undertaking to write on such a topic as this,
I am entering into a most controversial contemporary debate,
that being played out between discrepant feminist readings of
history and literature. I therefore thought it right to provide a
substantial introduction to define the position from which this
book proceeds, as well as to give account of some of the
abstruser, odder forms of Platonising and Hermeticist thought
which caught the Renaissance imagination enough to contribute
to the conjuring of the impossible into being by some artists,
both on the page and in the theatre. The perspective from which
I began to contemplate these ideas was broadly Jungian, and this
IX
x Preface
may still be perceptible in the final work; the manner is personal,
showing a lack of deconstructive zeal for which I cannot
apologise. Generic problems are naturally raised when survey is
made of a poetic dramatist alongside two epic poets, and here
perhaps some apology is due. I have tended to treat Shakespeare's
drama with emphasis on the poetry because of the company in
which I read him for the purposes of this book. Whilst I believe
this inclination to be apt for the symbolic and mythic mode in
which his Last Plays are agreed to be written, I have tried not to
ignore the dramatic dimension without which interpretation is
seriously incomplete.
Finally, I have accused Shakespeare of possessing more learning
than is commonly thought quite compatible with the joy of
drama and the slanders of history ('small Latin and less Greek').
It seems to me extraordinary that the present generation still
likes to view Shakespeare as so inadequately endowed with
information which was common knowledge and vitally
interesting to the enquiring minds of his generation. The
Hermetic and Platonistic secrets were the gossip of the intelli-
gentsia of his day: you did not have to live with your head in an
antique book to know what was in the air.
I should like to take this opportunity of thanking my friend
Douglas Brooks-Davies of the University of Manchester for
many wonderful conversations about Renaissance mythography
and iconography, which enlarged my understanding and sug-
gested clues and possibilities; perhaps all the more precious was
his undertaking the drudgery of hunting elusive references and
inaccessible books on my behalf on many occasions.
I must thank several generations of students of Renaissance
English literature at the University of Manchester for sharing
with me their responses and insights. Here I might especially
mention Grace Timmins, Katherine Spearman, Mark Fairey,
Caroline Redmond, Marilyn Tolhurst and Teresa Flower. I am
grateful to my friend Andrew Howdle for sharing with me his
scholarly love of Renaissance literature in many illuminating
conversations.
I owe a great debt to the generous interest taken in my work
by Professor William B. Hunter Jr. of the University of
Houston, though of course I attribute to that eminent and
learned man none of the positions adopted in this book, which I