Renaissance Forum: Volume 6, Number 2, Winter 2003: Terence Clifford-Amos

Bart van Es. 2002. Spenser's Forms of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. x + 232 pp. ISBN 0-1992-4970-9. Ł40.

Reminding us of Wayne Erickson's fairly recent exploration of the sense of history in The Faerie Queene, Bart van Es concurs that Edmund Spenser had a 'profound', 'multiform', and yet 'playful' 'sense of the past'. An eclectically packed text – so much the fashion for outings in Spenser – promotes van Es's skilful and finely spun six forms of historical engagement. He writes commandingly across a range of Spenser's works.
His pinpointing of Spenser's intertextuality locates the topoi of hybridizing and juxtaposing which explains the term Poet historical – Spenser's own coinage in his letter to Ralegh and one which is commonly discussed by critics in recent commentaries. That the forms of history remain 'unfixed' does not undermine their instrumental vitality in the structure of historical meaning. Chronicles inevitably speak of Briton moniments, which include a 'roll-call of British kings'. The Faerie Queene II.x, which received excellent analytic treatment by Carrie Harper very early in the last century, figures significantly in van Es's close foragings.
The initial chapter, 'All my Antique Moniments Defaced .&nbps;. .', provokes a fresh focus on Briton moniments and 'Antiquitie of Faerie lond' (II.ix.59.6, 60.2). Here, van Es reminds us of Spenser's didactic tendencies towards recounting inspirations and moral lessons from the past. Like Harper before him, van Es shrouds us in aspects of uncertainty in the chronicles before homing in on 'Moniment' itself as a powerful but ambiguous term in the sixteenth century. Principally, a distinction is drawn between two truths – 'moral instruction' and 'physical evidence'. Foxe, Sidney and the forensically anatomized Du Bellay are explored 'monumentally', so to speak, van Es asserting that for Foxe all senses of the word are mutually supportive, whilst in Sidney they are antithetical. This polarization in Spenser is somehow tensely productive. And in Du Bellay, van Es identifies a spiky 'unpredictability' in the 'historical monument'.
The most successfully innovative reading for me is of Spenser translating Du Bellay's The Ruines of Rome as part of the Complaints volume. The transference of monumentality to verse provides the fitting epithet for Spenser as one of a 'line of immortal immortalizers'. Aspects of The Ruines of Time entice similarly close and sensitive parallels with Du Bellay's Antiquitez. Here we can be reminded of Ortelius, who stimulated Camden to 'Clear doubts and recall some veritee by way of recovery' when the last term is harnessed to Spenser's visions of the past. 'Loss' and 'Discovery', semantically embedded in the word moniment, 'inhere', thus providing additional insights into Spenser's transposition of Du Bellay's Roman experience. Rivers, from Holinshed to Osgood and contemporary commentators, continue to find some deep chorographic vitality and are here fascinatingly understood as monuments. Conversely, the Thames abandoning Verlame in Ruines, as an erasive act, can create a monument, buoyantly resuscitated by Spenser.
Returning to Eumnestes's Chamber, van Es reminds us of particular difficulties: Briton moniments and what is announced in the rubric to Canto x – A chronicle of Briton kings – are not the same thing. This is not the story we read, van Es cautions. Amongst the problems associated with this, we find that what is read there proves limiting for poet, sovereign, and reader. How Britain came to be inhabited is shown to be a tension for Spenser but nonetheless our poet is swept along, not too unruffled by the unsettling 'land of the giants' dispute.
The dubious corollary for Spenser must be the unauthenticated Brutus. Although Holinshed's Chronicles, dedicated to Burghley (he of self-claimed Trojan blood) was a pro-Brutus text, much doubt about the legend existed. Van Es points to greater uncertainties than mere doubt. Uncertainties about the past are recounted both by Spenser and Holinshed. And, ultimately because in Briton moniments histories and fiction coalesce, we are told, 'absences in the historical record' consequently synthesize 'playfulness, scepticism and regret'. Briton moniments and the Complaints volume are 'concerned' with such absences.
Van Es's chorographic interests break new ground in Spenser studies. He is the first to write substantially on the interplay of land and water in history and in Spenser's present time. Lands and rivers are deployed variously and are subjected to chorographic investigation. He shows how the 'here of specific architectural remains' can relate to the 'now of the moment of narration'. This was the role of the new antiquarian movement, its new facilities and developing perspectives, he writes. Persuasively, he suggests there was a chorographic moment 'latent within all romances'. And Spenser, drawing heavily on this form, is the Poet historical who 'parcels up the narrative of Britain's past' in freedoms similar to Camden.
There is a strong focus on the South Wales context of The Faerie Queene III in which is featured a simultaneous 'analeptic/proleptic' movement between past and now. The most amplified facets of this absorbing chapter begin with the river pageant – the 'Marriage of Thames and Medway', in which, chorographically, myths are attached to places, and where, also, we will find narratives of 'localized grievance and broad territorial ambition'. The pro-Irish school may be undermined by the slightly discomforting attitude of Spenser in his somewhat sober reaction towards that country's rivers being allotted places in the pageant of The Faerie Queene IV. Faeryland does not include Ireland. Colin Clout, fresh from the Irish sea, is born again as a landed English shepherd [in Faeryland] to which he is drawn from his 'river loving' Irish domain, 'from Spenser's [land] – to Ralegh's land'. It is at Cornwall where the 'chorographic topoi of geography, myth and antiquarian enquiry fall most easily together'. What is a new and promised land to Brutus is no less welcoming to Colin. Between the juxtaposition of England and Ireland lie St George's Channel and the Irish sea. Finally in this chapter, Prothalamion tethers us to the 'enduring present of London', to which is ever related the 'dynamic perspective on time that chorography affords'.
The chapter on Ireland – again richly mixed – inclines more towards political antiquity. The transposition of a blatantly agitative colonial discourse, being passed off as a 'product' of the Society of Antiquaries, is an ironic nicety which van Es neatly articulates. In so far as publication was concerned, the View, in its first published form, was in the company of English 'imports'. Spenser's unsettling contemporary text, therefore sat rather uncomfortably alongside Irish antiquaries when it first appeared in 1633. Van Es suggests that the View in other company proved provocative; however, Spenser's focus on primitive cultures resonated in those discourses 'conducted by the Society of Antiquaries'. So Spenser's connections with the antiquaries of England who shared with him certain 'social profiles', is a considered reason for his accommodation of 'antiquarian thinking'. Several antiquarian sources and their influences are discussed, notably Thomas Hearne's A Collection of Curious Discourses written by Eminent Antiquaries, which is a collection of the Society's manuscripts.
In the View Spenser's interest in primitive cultures and enthusiasm for antiquarian research is channelled through Irenaeus, the voice speaking of reforming the 'wild Irish'. Unearthed here are particularly strong ancient analogues, from which, in the View, inferences are drawn from Roman and Saxon governance and laws. Organizing the text of the View in chiastic terms, van Es illustrates how the cultural and legal past and present operate. Some familiar ground is re-trod in Two Cantos of Mutabilitie, though the Irish concerns are manifestly fresh in the interesting matrix of lived-world associations. Primarily, the trial of the Titaness on Arlo Hill is shifted from a treatise on the science of Spenser's day towards a platform and context for debating conquests. Here, van Es assimilates the discussion rather nicely to his dealings with the history of Ireland's conquest, and in particular the reason why it was not 'full and finall'. The chapter at this point reverts effectively to the texts discussed earlier. Parallels are drawn between Mutabilitie resisting monarchical powers and, in similar context, early Britons and Saxons. And the tradition of 'assembly' is read as pre-insurrectionist, that is in terms of the evils and dangers of political 'meetings'. In these cantos, the assembly point itself is a place 'not for sage counsellors, but for thieves'. Thus the threatening potential becomes politically clear, as we are reminded that the meeting between the interlocutors in the View did not occur again.
Writing on Euhemerism in the chapter following, van Es sharpens a number of concepts in illustrating the 'recovery' mode, initially by reference to Ralegh's Story of the First Age. The fact that behind the myths of pagan antiquity lay real and recoverable history, by bringing to light otherwise 'indeterminate time', re-casts 'Gods and monsters' as 'genuine' and 'historical' persons. Greek, Roman and Christian historians were greatly influenced by Euhemerism. Spenser's familiarity with this historical method is pursued in relation to van Es's healthy obsession with Eumnestes's chamber, where the Faerie Chronicle can be interpreted as an 'inspired vision of the historical process'. He reminds us of the connections Rathborne's early work The Meaning of Spenser's Faeryland makes with universal history, for the Elfin chronicle goes back to Adam and Eve.
An overarching scheme of 'providence' was fundamental to a world history, as Ralegh was to stress. And obliquely we find in the Faerie Chronicle of The Faerie Queene II, a shift from 'mythical emperors to a set of analogues for Tudor monarchs'. Spenser frequently concerns himself with the interplay of poetry and history, through which opportunity is created for connections to be made between the Faerie Chronicle and accepted history. The Faerie Chronicle, we are told, 'invites and exposes such reading strategies'. The section on 'fables' includes episodes in The Faerie Queene V that 'allude to British conquests' and vague aspects of world history. Analogies include Mammon and Isis Church which can relate to 'present and antique history'. Antique history, 'gestured at in Guyon's chronicle', van Es shows to be unfolded in the proem and early stanzas of The Faerie Queene V.
History and allegory tend towards an interchangability through the Euhemerist method. Mythical figures 'could be read as direct moral allegory', and the legends themselves 'could be decoded as allegory in a different sense' – shrouding the justicers and their work in the world of law-making. These interpretations abound in readings of The Faerie Queene V. Thus, we find overlapping allegories, for example, between the Herculean legends and Artegall and Arthur. Geryon, a Herculean giant in canto xi of The Faerie Queene V becomes one of Spenser's religious tyrants. Van Es reads his prototype (Geryoneo) as Philip II. The remaining narrative on giants reaches yet newer peaks in Spenserian criticism. From the first age and through later examples their 'vitality', 'strength', and 'primitive desires' remind us of the tyrants in universal chronicles. The history of giants and their complex meanings is admirably dissected and reassembled. Thus, in Grantorto for example, we find a synthesis of the 'political, allegorical and [. . .] racial' in the giant. Unsurprisingly, the 'tyranny, pride, rebellion and lust' of the ancient giants prefigure the founder Catholic monarchs or popes. Spenser's satirical play on 'Masse' (V.xi.32) endorses this view. Giants are rich sources for Spenser; as van Es adroitly states, they 'manage to be history and poetry at the same time'.
The Faerie Queene is central to the complex process of analogy, van Es's penultimate chapter asserts. 'Past comparison' provided the mirror through which could be envisioned excellent model portraits. The image of the monarch, for example, in Foxe's Book of Martyrs (Acts and Monuments) effects a comparison between Hales's accession speech – included in this text – and Romulus, the 'greatest of the Judaic princes'. Elizabeth is also praised as a second Constantine in the Book of Martyrs, which is how analogy presented the monarch during the age of militant and 'radical Protestantism'. Brought to the surface are several chronicles whose sources idealistically parallel the reign of Elizabeth, of which Aeneas as forefather of Brutus appears the most comprehensively cogent in Spenser's work. Van Es might have thought also about the mythical Graces, and Elizabeth as the incongruously intrusive 'fourth' of these in The Faerie Queene VI. Virtually without question, we find that Elizabeth is often only depicted in terms of her 'glorious high points'. There was an 'almost obsessive awareness of parallels', which 'haunted the writers and readers of history alike'. Parallel influences included omens and numerology, assisting (or inevitably confusing) the 'predestined' dictates of 'history'. Holinshed's Chronicles and Warner's Albions England are employed in illustrating these aspects.
Similarly, a range of Elizabethan forms of symbolism, including portraiture and pageantry, works variously in terms of analogy. As found in Elizabeth's progresses, her fanfare is richly, and often archaically eclectic. In these, she is a monarch shoring up and 'reasserting' her dominions, though in at least one of the entertainments she is less aggressively idealized as a peacemaker. In The Faerie Queene, her knights are afforded an opportunity to 'gaze upon her nation's place in history'. Having taken us on more than one occasion to Eumnestes's chamber, van Es does not forget the chronicle history presented at Malbecco's castle, here recounting how critics have found alternate purposes in the retelling of history. Troy is used by Paridell to 'woo Hellenore', while Spenser is doing something similar to 'woo Elizabeth'. The importance of Troy in analogizing history is paralleled by the Queen in her capital city, fashioning 'her kingdom in the image of the past'.
Fashioning the queen's image for the future rather than the past – as in the proem to Book II – is an inversion of retrospective analogy. Conversely, temporal analogy sees the Reformation being placed at the end of the 'great eras in history', though, of course, Elizabeth's church was the beginning of a new one. Trickily, van Es explains how Spenser complicates Harvey's use of 'nowe'. In Spenser, 'now' can be 'subtly different' to the 'now' of Elizabeth's glorious reign. As Astraea, her glorious reign can transcend time. So we are led to believe, in relation to The Faerie Queene in particular, that a 'declining age [sits] alongside a new one'. Explained to us is how the 'past, present and future' function in the Legend of Justice. Patterson's reading of Holinshed, which outlines examples and techniques of censorship, is visited to illustrate the problem of some 'politically sensitive additions' to the 1587 edition. Predictably, historical popes are analogously vital to Spenser's church war, in that they are recycled in the form of past depictions – figures of the antichrist.
The Belgian intrusion into the mythical Arthurian past is excellently negotiated. We are moved from the magically mythical to the actual 'miry' fens of Antwerp. And Arthur as a medieval visionary is paralleled with the 'expansionist queen' of many centuries later. Ultimately, we are left pensive, with various 'historical mirrors' in which we are free to 'situate Elizabeth and her court'. In the later books of The Faerie Queene, Elizabethan politics are sharply in focus – Grey in Ireland, Leicester in Antwerp, the Queen of Scots and the Spanish reprisals which followed. These examples and others find their parallels in the later books and are convincingly made to express Spenser's promotion of political analogy. 'A culture attuned to historical analogies' found the process 'far reaching'.
We are given an appropriate conclusion with a chapter on prophecy and history. Merlin continues prophetically the history of Britain begun at Alma's castle. Spenser's unique Merlin is geographically situated at Maridunum, which van Es recounts as historically and geographically important to Spenser's mirror of the past. The 'wondrous myrrhour' of the present, vital to the love-lusting Britomart, is neatly paralleled with 'In mirrours more than one herself to see' (III.proem.5.6) and with the similar verse prefacing The Faerie Queene II (II.proem.4.7-9) Intriguingly, we are pointed to both mirrors, and each affords different visions. Britomart sees Artegall, her 'appointed husband', but for Elizabeth he provides nothing more than a hopeless vision for a union in the future. Issues in this chapter also relate the curious practice of invented prophecy – a pretence that imagined that certain histories 'had not yet occurred'. Spenser's Merlin, we are told, is one such prophetic charlatan. Spenser too, it might seem, is not immune, for in the later edition of the poem (1596), 'its treatment of prophecy bears the imprint of the crisis years 1579-80'.
Political prophecy is part of a wide tract of writing which van Es amply illustrates, including, as he says, 'the apocalyptic rantings on the streets of London', but the curtailment of it came with the statute of 1562. False prophecy, so to speak, was prosecutable. Political prophecy had its own particular dangers, in that, for example, a monarch lacking an heir – while the Queen of Scots was foretold to have one – was rendered vulnerable. Despite this, prophetic writing actively illustrates its deep and engaging interest for Shakespeare, Harington and others. Recrimination could be avoided by turning prophetic forebodings into vehicles of praise. Much of this practice took the form of a recycling of old prophecies, including those used by Spenser. Unsurprisingly, political prophecy is often seasoned with religious controversy. That the Book of Revelations foreshadows the fall of the Roman church is a common prophetic interpretation of The Faerie Queene I. Similar prophetic tracts are found in Jan Van der Noot's ultra-Protestant emblem book A Theatre for Worldlings.
The Shepheardes Calender provides us with several examples of political prophecy. Spenser's 'applying an olde name' – the medieval French Kalender of Shepardes – to a new work makes 'direct connections with prophecy'. Political prophecy in the July Eclogue illustrates how topographic antithesis symbolizes the ongoing religio-political issues of Spenser's day. This Eclogue, decoded, also unearths church controversy – the debate concerning the house arrest of Archbishop Grindal. Playing on the politics of the day also creates visions and warnings for the future. Superstition and its association with magic and Romism rendered prognostication – and its association with dangerous astrology – a dangerous practice. Van Es's inclusion of the politically charged Gaping Gulf shows that no Spenser volume is complete without its mention, but here, quite specifically, Stubbs is discussed for his dark prophecies. The Shepheardes Calender provides a subtle and carefully balanced exposé of the 'dangerous unpredictability of prophecies'.
A chapter on prophecy would seem incomplete without reference to Three proper wittie familiar Letters. The earthquake of April 6 1580 spawned dozens of prophetic pamphlets which, as Gerald Snare put it some time ago, 'inveigh against the sins of England', which Van Es might have seized on for his argument, though he nicely captures the way the event was understood as God's warning. Van Es imports the tenor of Harvey's unpublished Dreames to his arguments on prophecy and also, fascinatingly, the works of Harvey's brothers, Richard and John, whose examples of prophetic writing were to cause 'widespread panic'. Legislation against prophecy is understandably justified, but is nonetheless a product of a superstitious over-reaction typical of the period which spawned it. Van Es moves to the later books of The Faerie Queene and shows how their content carries forward the major issues to hand in the first. In the 1596 edition we are faced with the precipitous present and also the prophetic moments of Britomart – mirroring Elizabeth's dilemmas – at Isis Church. He concludes that prophetic issues have 'the capacity to change their aspect, depending on the political context in which they are read'.
Bart van Es has demonstrated far more than what David Simpson summarizes as 'a powerful ability to conjure up complex life worlds from tiny fragments'. He shows how Spenser's aggressive intertextual writing engages forms of history in 'productive tension', projecting on to the reader a 'matrix of suggestive parallels', from, as he puts it, the 'apocryphal past to hypothetical future achievements'. More vitally, we are taken to new ground where we learn a great deal about the designs of the Poet historical.

TERENCE CLIFFORD-AMOS
CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE