Thinking about Thinking in the Fowre Hymnes

Abstract

The Fowre Hymnes contain Spenser’s most discursive poetry, andin them his handling of philosophical and theological matters ismore doctrinaire than in other poems. Most scholarship on theHymnes has concentrated on tracing Spenser’s thought tolearned sources and deciding, on that evidence, how to labelhis mixture of courtly, Christian, and Platonic or Neoplatonicthemes. While it considers one instance of Spenser’s borrowingsfrom Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s Symposium, this essay ismore concerned to relate the content of the Hymnes to “thinkingmoments” in other parts of his poetic oeuvre. Ideas aboutthe heavenly source of physical beauty and its power to inspirea refined, intellectual love, explained at length in the first pairof hymns, can be found more succinctly expressed in Spenser’searlier poetry, dating back in at least one instance to the briefperiod, circa 1580, when he was associated with Philip Sidney.The second pair of hymns echoes the religiosity of Book I inThe Faerie Queene; the fourth hymn, especially in its vision of“Sapience … /The soueraine dearling of the Deity” and itsworld-renouncing conclusion, also invites comparison toSpenser’s posthumous Cantos of Mutabilitie.