Essay Proposal
Candace Lee
July 9, 2008
English 410W
I would like to focus my paper on temperance, temptation and gender in Book two of Edmund Spenser’s “The Fairy Queene”. First, I intend to focus on Guyon’s individual journey with temptation and his goal, as the knight of temperance, to destroy the bower of bliss. What is the consequence of this destruction, if any at all? Was this action in itself intemperate, and if it was, does that even matter? What does achieving his goal mean in terms of temptation? I’d also like to do a gendered reading by comparing Phaedria’s bower and Mammon’s cave because I think their sex influences their temptation and Guyon’s reaction to them. For instance, Mammon’s temptation is material, like that of a wealthy powerful man, while Phaedria’s is sensual. Guyon defeats the sensual with his sword (or, big phallic symbol) while the material he can resist, but at a cost. Both seem to defeat him though he is victorious, but the question remains, is he truly the knight of temperance? Technically he is successful, but what can be learned from these moments of temptation and what role does gender play?
Bond, Christopher. “Medieval Harrowings of Hell and Spenser’s House of Mammon.”
English Literary Renaissance Inc. (2007): (37.2) 175-192.
Cavanagh, Sheila T. “Nightmares of Desire: Evil Women in The Fairy Queene.” The
University of North Carolina Press. (1994): 313-338.
Morgan, Gerald. “The Idea of Temperance in the Second Book of The Faerie Queene”.
The Review of English Studies. (1986): (37.145): 11-39.
Parker, Patricia. “The Progress of Phaedria’s Bower: Spenser to Coleridge”. The John
Hopkins University Press. (1973). (40.3): 372-397.
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1 comment:
Hi Candace,
I like the idea of comparing the Cave of Mammon episode to the Bowre of Bliss. You might want to look at Patricia Parker's more recent work on Book 2 in a book called Literary Fat Ladies. You might also want to look at Lauren Silberman's articles.
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