Spenser's Hellenore and Some Ovidian Associations

Abstract

T HE STORY of Hellenore, Paridell, and Malbecco has justly been called masterpiece in short narrative;1 is dramatic, immediately realistic, frequently farcical, occasionally grim, always suggestively multitoned. Like most of the other particularly memorable episodes of The Faerie Queene, is essentially original yet grounded in other literary works of divers kinds. And like all of Spenser's poem, is frequently discussed in terms of possible sources or influences. Dodge and McNeir relate the Hellenore story to passages from Orlando Furioso; Watkins adds that it is also reminiscent of Chaucer's tale of January and May and that one stanza (III,x,48) suggests the Reeve's Tale; Bush points out that Paridell's seduction of Hellenore seems to be modeled in part on the epistles in the Heroides (xvi,xvii) ; Nelson argues that Spenser drew suggestions from Gascoigne's Adventures of Master F. J., and notes also that Malbecco's metamorphosis is an imitation of that of Daedalion (Met. xi.338-345); Rosemond Tuve discovers in ironic references to the Communion service; and almost everybody calls attention to the relationships between Paridell and Paris and between Hellenore and Helen of Troy.2 All of these sources are possible, and a number are illuminating. For example, there is nowhere in The Faerie Queene an episode which better justifies Dodge's