Table Of Content• The • SG • The •
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Manchester e Manchester
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Spenser Spenser
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This is the first full-length study to be devoted to Una, the beleaguered
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but ultimately triumphant heroine of Book One of The Faerie Queene. an
Challenging the standard identification of Spenser’s Una with the post- s tly
h
Reformation Church in England, Kathryn Walls argues that she stands, e
rather, for the invisible Church, the whole community of the redeemed, ind
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whose membership is known by God alone. Her story (its Tudor i
resonances notwithstanding) thus embraces that of the Synagogue before sibu God’s only
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the Incarnation as well as that of the Church in the time of Christ and e
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thereafter. Una’s trajectory also allegorises the redemptive process that
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populates the City. Initially fallible, she undergoes a transformation that is ue daughter
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explained by the appearance of the kingly lion as Christ in canto iii. chr
Combining contextualisation with close reading, Walls offers new
•
interpretations of the tragically alienated figure of Abessa in canto iii (as Spenser’s Una
Synagoga), of the disarmingly feckless satyrs in canto vi (as the Gentiles
of the Apostolic era), and of the unreliable yet indispensable dwarf (the as the invisible Church
embodiment of the adiaphora that define national churches). Drawing
on the Bible and on medieval allegories, she also reinterprets Spenser’s W
marriage metaphor, clarifying the problematic significance of Red Cross A
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as Una’s spouse. These individual interpretations fall into place within a L
coherent account of what is shown to be, on Spenser’s part, a consistent S
treatment of Una. God’s only daughter will be of interest to established
Spenserians, and to those many undergraduates for whom Spenser’s Book
of Holiness is a set text.
Kathryn Walls is Professor of English
at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
• KATHRYN WALLS •
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
Walls ppc.indd 1 02/10/2013 12:43
God’s only daughter
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The Manchester Spenser is a monograph and text series devoted to historical and textual
approaches to Edmund Spenser – to his life, times, places, works and contemporaries.
A growing body of work in Spenser and Renaissance studies, fresh with confidence
and curiosity and based on solid historical research, is being written in response to a
general sense that our ability to interpret texts is becoming limited without the excavation
of further knowledge. So the importance of research in nearby disciplines is quickly being
recognised, and interest renewed: history, archaeology, religious or theological history,
book history, translation, lexicography, commentary and glossary – these require treat-
ment for and by students of Spenser.
The Manchester Spenser, to feed, foster and build on these refreshed attitudes, aims to
publish reference tools, critical, historical, biographical and archaeological monographs on
or related to Spenser, from several disciplines, and to publish editions of primary sources
and classroom texts of a more wide-ranging scope.
The Manchester Spenser consists of work with stamina, high standards of scholarship
and research, adroit handling of evidence, rigour of argument, exposition and documenta-
tion.
The series will encourage and assist research into, and develop the readership of, one
of the richest and most complex writers of the early modern period.
General Editor J.B. Lethbridge
Editorial Board Helen Cooper, Thomas Herron, Carol V. Kaske,
James C. Nohrnberg & Brian Vickers
Also available
Celebrating Mutabilitie: Essays on
Edmund Spenser’s Mutabilitie Cantos Jane Grogan (ed.)
Castles and Colonists: An archaeology of Elizabethan Ireland Eric Klingelhofer
Shakespeare and Spenser: Attractive opposites J.B. Lethbridge (ed.)
Renaissance erotic romance: Philhellene Protestantism,
Renaissance translation and English literary politics Victor Skretkowicz
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God’s only
daughter
Spenser’s Una as
the invisible Church
•
KAtHRYN WALLS
Manchester University Press
Manchester and New York
distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
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Copyright © Kathryn Walls 2013
The right of Kathryn Walls to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published by Manchester University Press
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK
and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
Distributed in the United States exclusively by
Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010, USA
Distributed in Canada exclusively by
UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6t 1Z2
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 07190 9037 0 hardback
First published 2013
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external
or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any
content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
typeset in Minion by
Koinonia, Manchester
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For
Victoria Coldham-Fussell
and Gillian Chell Hubbard
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Contents
List of illustrations page ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: the Incarnation, allegory, and idolatry 1
1 The fallibility of Una 19
2 Una redeemed 38
3 Una as the City of God 59
4 The City of God in history 81
5 Canto VI – the Church’s mission to the Gentiles 103
6 Una’s adiaphoric dwarf 129
7 Una’s trinitarian dimension 153
8 The multiplication of Una 178
Conclusion 206
Works cited 213
Index 227
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List of illustrations
1 The Lion as Christ. From Sancti Epiphanii ad Physiologum
(Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1588), p. 1. Reproduced from
a copy held by the University of Victoria (Canada), Special
Collections, by kind permission of the University of Victoria. page 51
2 The Lion’s Whelp as Christ. From Sancti Epiphanii ad Physio-
logum (Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1588), p. 5. Reproduced
from a copy held by the University of Victoria (Canada),
Special Collections, by kind permission of the University of
Victoria. 52
3 The Expulsion of Hagar. Painting by Jan Mostaert, 1562–3.
Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, INV. Nr. 294 (1930.77).
Reproduced by kind permission of the Museo Thyssen-
Bornemisza. 87
4 The Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael by Abraham. Engraving
after Maarten de Vos by Gerard de Jode (Antwerp, 1591).
Reproduced by kind permission of the Museum Boijmans Van
Beuningen, Rotterdam. 88
5 Rochester Cathedral, entrance to Chapter House. Photograph
by Robbie Munn. Reproduced by kind permission of Rochester
Cathedral. 91
6 The Descendants of Dardanus. Hand-drawn illustration in
Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogie Deorum Gentilium (Venice:
Vindelinus De Spira, 1472). Reproduced by kind permission of
the Roderic Bowen Library and Archives, University of Wales,
trinity Saint David. 115
7 The Tree of Jesse. Painted relief, sixteenth century. Basilica of
Saint Quentin, France. Photograph reproduced from original
kindly released into the public domain by photographer
Mattana. 116
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