Truth, Love, and the Exotic: The Amoretti Series of Edmund Spenser 1 - Essay Example

?Truth, Love, and the Exotic: The Amoretti series of Edmund Spenser The sonnets written by Edmund Spenser were created in a series that was intended to reflect a love affair from his life experience. There is speculation, however, that the subject of these poems is not a real woman but a device created by Spenser so that he can make his contribution to the form of the sonnet. Through the use of exotic animals and aggressive imagery, the female subject is often portrayed as the instigation of his heartache, but it is likely that this too is something he is using in order to create some form of exaggerated emotional turmoil. Through the evidence presented in the sonnets of Amoretti by Edmund Spenser and the theories by several authorities on the topic, this paper will argue that the ‘lady’ in the poems is a figment of Spenser’s imaginings. Edmund Spenser introduces his lady in the poem Amoretti in different ways that impress Stuart Martz for the emotional context in which they place their relationship. To Martz these representations of the lady echo "mutual understanding that controls the series. This peculiar and highly original relationship between the lover and his lady may be our best key to the whole sequence" He adds “Spenser's lady has a very decided and a very attractive character".2 As seen through the perspective that is provided by Spenser, it is clear that the lady impresses Spenser through her intellect. Spenser writes the following as he describes the workings of the lady’s mind: "her mind adorned with virtues manifold" (Sonnet 15), her "deep wit" (Sonnet 43), her "gentle wit" and "virtuous mind" (Sonnet 79), her "words so wise" and "the message of her gentle spirit" (Sonnet 81). On first glance it would seem that Spenser is discussing a love affair with an intelligent and beautiful woman. For J.W.Lever, however, nothing different can be seen about the lady in Amoretti that makes her a unique individual in Spenser’s life, nor for the sequence in general, stating "What probably happened with Amoretti was that around about 1594 Spenser felt the urge to make his own contribution in the sonnet medium".3 He suggests that Spenser had made a combination between two collections of sonnets that are totally different in “subject-matter, characterization, and general conception”.4 The convention was to introduce personal love story in sonnet sequences; but according to Lever Spenser did not achieve it. He adds “to make up a sequence, convention required him to recount the story of his courtship, from its inspection onwards, providing an adequate record of the lovers' moods and encounters”. Though, he divides the sonnets into two 'different collections'. His division is based on the presentations of the lady through the sonnets. Lever points out that 'there are at least some eighteen sonnets best considered apart from the main group, all related to the experiences of the scorned lover'.5 Martz can not dispute the disparity within the eighteen sonnets as pointed out by Lever. Admitting that the well-presented lover commits 'huge massacres' with her eyes in the eighteen sonnets, the suggested corned lover theory as presented by Lever can be observed. Martz explains that 'Many of these are done with such extravagant exaggeration of the conventional poses that they strike me as close to mock-heroic'6 In this paper I will concentrate on three particular sonnets in which the lady in these sonnets appears totally different from the lady that Martz observes in the sonnets, thus proving the theories as suggested by Lever on the intentions of Edward Spenser. According to Elizabeth Furlong; "Spenser's poetic imagery is indissolubly united to his conceptual meaning neither imagery nor meaning can be properly understood apart from each other nor apart from the poet's stated didactic intention"7. With this regard I will be looking at sonnets 20, 53 and 56 in which the lover and her behaviour is compared to the most exotic animals; the speaker appears complaining of his lover's cruelty and states that how hard he tries to seek her his efforts remain useless because she more cruel and more savage wild Than either lion or lioness (20. 9-10) The speaker says; however lion is wild and enjoys power but it still has some mercy upon a helpless lamb when it yields out of fear but the lion with his most pride disdains to devour The silly lamb that to his might doth yield (20.7) While his lover with the same ferocity of the lion acts but she knows no mercy; Her foot She in my neck doth place And treat my life down in the lowly floor (20.3-4) Then the lover appears so proud of herself with her cruelty; Shames not to be with guiltless blood defiled, But taketh glory in her cruelness (20.11-12) So the speaker appears helpless like the lamb which becomes the prey of the wild lion and the lover behaves with no mercy. This bloody and savage scenery becomes more frustrating this time in Amoretti 53. The speaker compares the behaviour of his mistress to a wild panther on the ground that they are both engaged with as their prey. So, once again he appears as a helpless prey who suffers from the seductive behaviour of the lady. Especially as panthers are known that they are cunning animals, this time he says she is as cunning as a panther in the way she uses her beauty to deceive him to capture him as a prey; The panther, knowing that his spotted hide Doth please all beasts, but that his looks them fray, Within a bush his dreadful head doth hide To let them gaze whilst he on them may prey (53.1-4) It is fabled that panthers known to exhale a sweet fragrance (according to the definition of panther in Oxford English Dictionary) and that they enjoy their physical beauty to use it along with their nice fragrance, to cheat their prey and capture them. This romanticized imagery of the panther allows Spenser to define his female subject in relationship to the exotic of his objectified animal. He does hide his head so as his prey would not be frightened by the ferocity of his head, his mouth with hidden teeth. Albert Charles Hamilton describes these kinds of animals at the time of hunting and how they deceive their prey; "all four-footed animals are wonderfully attracted by their smell, but frightened by the savage appearance of their head; for which reason they catch them by hiding their head, enticing them to approach by their other attractions"8. Spenser identifies the subject of his love for her ability to behave in the same way. He shows how his love does the same trick and does the same thing; Right so my cruel fair with me doth play, For with the goodly semblant of her hue She doth allure me to mine own decay, And then no mercy will unto me show (53.5-8) Spenser still praises the beauty of his lover, because as he is complaining about her behaviour, he compares her to the beauty of the panther.. Thus he gives an image of a panther while he hides his head (as they have got an unattractive fierce head). Here a kind of an unusual conceit is used. Albert Charles Hamilton's definition of conceit is; " A conceit is not an image… it is a piece of wit It is…. the discovery of a proposition referring to one field of experience in terms of an intellectual structure derived from another field"9. So on this basis Spenser describes his lover like these predators. This praising, regardless of her ferocity, shows that Spenser's speaker continues to be devoted to his love for the lady. With the dramatic development of the sonnets the speaker gets more disturbed by the wildness of his mistress. This time in sonnet 56, she is represented as a tiger. As Topsell explains "it has been falsely believed that all tigers be females, and that there are no males among them"10. The notions of the period of time in which they sonnets are written can be seen reflected in the ignorance and mysticism with which exotic animals were perceived. Here her image is completed and framed totally in a beastly frame. The subject treats the speaker more mercilessly; Fair ye be sure; but cruel and unkind As is a tiger that, with greediness, Hunts after blood when he by chance doth find A feeble beast doth felly him oppress (56.1-4) So she is like a tiger that catches a weak animal and makes it its prey as it falls in its grasp. According to Joan Curbet, as far as "the beloved is now fully characterised as a predator and at this point, the cumulative force of the various metaphor which she has been represented is enough to prevent the reader from taking this one as a mere commonplace". 12 J.W.Lever argues " in Amoretti the use of imagery is almost as distinctive as the handling of content,… and their technique fashioned after the allegorical style, is based on calculated exaggeration, and the images employed, neither metaphors nor genuine similes, may perhaps be described as emblematic".13 What does these symbols tell us about the speaker's relationship to the lover in Amoretti? While these sonnets are commonly assumed to reflect Spenser's own courtship with his wife, it is likely that they are representative of Spenser’s perspective on what is needed to participate in the creation of the sonnet. As his work is highly expressive and exaggerations of emotional content of a relationship, it is likely that these exaggerations are representative of the false nature of the idea that the subject is someone with which he is in love. The speaker's love in the sonnets quoted above appears to show a great deal of self pride. This pride is quiet unusual which may suggest the possibility of the subject being a different person for whom Spenser gives all the beautiful attributes in the other sonnets. Furthermore according to these presentations of the lover as predators 'lion, panther and tiger', the poet does not seem to be in a good situation and possibly cannot stand against the cruelty of the lover. This shift in perspective may reveal that the poems were not about a love affair, but were about creating the form for imagery that he was interested in conveying. Margaret Healy asserts that "Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy is much preoccupied with 'the borders of the human', with depicting the type of behaviour deemed excessive, horrific, and 'in-humane', which aligned … woman with the antithesis of the nurturing mother – the murderous, unnatural monster"14 The idea of the female as monster, her otherness from the male gender made exotic through the use of exotic animal imagery is a departure from the way in which she is created in the other works. The poems define the female through a series of different images that do not seem to be consistent in describing her character. She is intellectually stimulating to Spenser, but her behaviour is that of an exotic animal. It is likely that Lever has created a correct theory about the construction of the Amoretti sonnet series. In creating such a wide difference in the way in which the relationship is defined, it is likely that it was, as Lever suggests, that the sonnets were built upon fragments of ideas from other works. Through the exotic animal themed images, it is clear that a concept was developed rather than a reflection of something that was being experienced. Even as Healy has suggested that it was a common Elizabethan device to relate the nature of human existence through baser concepts, the continuity is missing in creating a picture that relates to a single woman with whom Spenser shares love. Despite the way in which Martz is impressed by the way that Spenser portrays the woman that he loves, it is likely that she never existed and was an object of Spenser’s imagination, manifested into a subject of his sonnets. Notes: 1- All the quotations from Shakespeare's sonnets in this paper are from: Edmund Spenser, Amoretti in Selected shorter poems, ed. Douglas Brooks- Davies(London:Longman,1995). Further citations from the text will be identified by indicating the number of the sonnets followed by the number of the lines that been cited through the paper. 2- Edmund Spenser, Edmund Spenser's poetry, ed.Hugh Maclean(New York:Norton:1982)P. 505. 3- Louis Martz, "The Amoretti" in Hugh Maclean ed. Edmund Spenser's poetry(New York:Norton:1982)P.P 723-728. 4- Louis Martz, "The Amoretti" in Hugh Maclean ed. Edmund Spenser's poetry(New York:Norton:1982)P.P 723-728. 5- Louis Martz, "The Amoretti" P.P 723-728. 6- Louis Martz, "The Amoretti" P.P 723-728. 7- J.W. Lever "The Amoretti" in Hugh Maclean ed. Edmund Spenser's poetry(New York:Norton:1982)P.P 717-723. 8- Elizabeth Furlong, Alkaaoud, "What The Lyon Ment": Iconography of The Lion in The Poetry of Edmund Spenser. A PhD Dissertation. Accessed online via ( http://hdl.handle.net/1911/15797 )Accessed : 01/08 2010 9- Hamilton. Albert Charles, The Spenser Encyclopedia, (1990) in Google books online URl http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LPxd5sliodAC&dq=isbn:0802079237 10- Phillip Drennon Thomas, 'The Tower of London's Royal Menagerie', History Today, vol.46, (August 1996) p.p 29-35. 11- Topsell, Edward. The History of Foure-Footed Beastes (London: William Jaggard, 1607), P.P.706-7, cited from Early English Books Online. 12- Joan Curbet, " Edmund Spenser's bestiary in the Amoretti" The jurnal of ATLANTIS XXIV.2 ((Desember,2002) Accessed online via : (http://www.atlantisjournal.org/Papers/24_2/curbet.pdf) 13- J.W.Lever, The Elizabethan Love Sonnet (London:Methuen, 1959) P.130. 14- Margaret Healy, " Bodily Regimen and fear of the Beast: 'plausibility' in Renaissance Domestic Tragedy", in (eds), Erica Fudge, Ruth Gilbert, Susan Wiseman, At the Borders of the Human, Beasts, Bodies and Natural Philosophy in the Early Modern period,( London: Macmillan press.1999), 51-73,p.51 15- Quoted from ' The poet's place in the world: Images of the poet in the Renaissance' in (Alvin B. Kernan, The playwright as magician : Shakespeare's Image of the poet in the English Public Theatre(New Haven: Yale University press, 1979) P.32 Read More