Spenserian Psychology and the Structure of Allegory in Books 1 and 2 of "The Faerie Queene"

Abstract

In 1 Cor. 15, Saint Paul grapples with one of the most difficult questions, the nature of the resurrection body: Some wil say, How are the dead raised vp? and with what bodie come they forthe? Paul distinguishes between man's physical body and his spiritual body, and he affirms our access to both bodies: As we haue borne the image of the earthlie, so shal we beare the image of the heauenlie.... For this corruptible must on incorruption: and this mortal must on immortalitie. I Are there then two types of psychology, a corruptible and an incorruptible human form? And what exactly does Paul mean by put on? What is the relation between our natural and spiritual bodies, between our Adam-nature and our Christ-nature? Spenser, in the main allegorical figures of The Faerie Queene, especially in the House of Holiness and Alma's Castle, has much to say about the composition of these two bodies, about how they are structurally very similar, and about how the one is fulfilled in the other. Although Harry Berger, Jr., has given an extensive commentary on Alma's Castle, and Joseph Collins an explication of the three mystical ways in the House of Holiness, and although a number of critics have observed the interplay of irascible and concupiscent tendencies throughout book 2,2 there has in fact been very inadequate consideration of the nature and complicated origins of Spenserian psychology. It is especially important to determine whether the various Platonic, Aristotelian, and Patristic schemes have been integrated by Spenser into a single configuration which consistently informs the structure of his main allegorical groupings, sequences, landscapes, and houses-those composite figures which exemplify the total human form. Unfortunately, Berger has attributed too much importance to Aristotelian faculty psychology in identifying the parts of Alma's Castle. A. Kent Hieatt, who emphasizes the more crucial influence of Plato, follows Sirluck, Nelson, Hankins, and others in focusing on the irascibleconcupiscent (or froward-forward) extremes which recur continually in the allegory of book 2. However, this bifurcation of extremes, which represents an Aristotelian development of Plato's moral-psychological scheme, does not suggest the total image of human nature in The Faerie Queene, but rather shows the