Spenser's Supreme Fiction: Platonic Natural History and The Faerie Queene by Jon A. Quitslund (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS105 the late nineteenth century' (2); and 'a more aesthetic tradition' (4) that discovers how unsuitable are the ideals of an earlier age for contemporary society. It is this dual focus that determines his choice of texts. As a result, he ignores novels placed in an Arthurian setting, unless they comment upon clearly recognizable contemporary figures and events, as does Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Although he discusses the fiction ofJohn Steinbeck at length, he is less interested in The Acts ofKing Arthur than he is in his other novels, which are placed in a contemporary setting. In these, and in the fiction ofRaymond Chandler, John Gardner, and Donald Barthelme, he finds evidence that the ideals ofArthur's court are unsuited to modern American society. This approach has merit, and it reminds Arthurian scholars of contemporary events that may have influenced the authors, e.g., Matthew Arnold's criticism of American culture and the Haymarket riots in 1886 had an impact upon Twain. Unfortunately, the actual performance suffers from two major drawbacks. First of all, Mathis is ill informed on Arthurian literature outside the books he considers. He maintains that 'the symbolism of the Wheel of Fortune remains Launcelot's domain in Malory' (110), attributes to Gardner the view that in Malory's time 'a Hitler-like fiend was on the throne in Henry IV (107), refers to 'the medieval cycle of Merlin plays' (113), and describes TH. White's Once and Future King as 'a standard retelling of the Arthurian tales' (100). Moreover, some of his judgments on the books he does study are contentious, ifnot misleading, as in his unsupported claim that Twain 'would... render Arthur, Launcelot, and others as buffoons and would destroy them all' (23). The second problem is that much of his material is of such doubtful relevance that he strains to find Arthurian connections. All Mathis discovers in Gardner's Freddy's Book, for example, is a statue of St. George, and in this he finds 'some Arthurian resonance' (119) because St. George, like Prince Arthur, appears in Spenser's Faerie Queene. Whenever an image or analogue differs from the source, he embraces it as an example of 'a debasement of the Arthurian legend' (117) or 'debasing the Grail quest' (81), where the uninitiated might see no connection at all. But if divergence means debasement, then the less recognizable the analogue, the more it proves his argument. There is some interesting information here, but if readers want to know about King Arthur in Modern American Literature, they should read King Arthur in America by Alan and Barbara Tepa Lupack (1999). RAYMOND H. THOMPSON Acadia University JON a. QUITSLUND, Spensers Supreme Fiction: PlatonicNaturalHistory andT\\z Faerie Queene. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Pp. xi, 373. isbn: 0—80203505 -1. $70. In his new work on that most-studied ofArthurian poems, The Faerie Queene, Jon Quitslund provides us with a valuable and even indispensable addition to the serious 1?6ARTHURIANA reader's short shelfofimportant studies on the text—no mean feat considering the many library shelves groaning with Spensarian commentaries. His focus is on the likely influence of Renaissance Platonism upon Spenser as transmitted by writers such as Marsilio Ficino. However, Quitslund's work is not only or primarily an exercise in source study and analogues (although effective in that regard), but also in readings ofkeyaspects ofthe text (including Spenser's role as author) from various theoretical approaches that illuminate especially the role ofgender in the work and the mysteries ofthe Garden ofAdonis narrative in Book III ofthe poem. In respectful probing ofthe poem based on a long and thoughtful engagement (and recalling the author's own journey from interpretation based in CS. Lewis's work to more postmodern approaches), and in theoretical deftness at probing the iconographie poem's fluctuating identities, Quitslund, professor emeritus in English at George Washington University, has produced a book ofvalue not only to Spenserians, but more broadly to Arthurianists, medievalists, and early modernists interested in ways of combining historicist, source-study, and theoretical approaches to less-studied and older texts, Arthurian or otherwise. Quitslund shows in a graceful way how textual study can be...