Venus and Diana: Some Uses of Myth in the Faerie Queene

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to suggest and examine some of the ways in which the resources of classical mythology are used by Spenser in the third and fourth books of The Faerie Queene. Any such attempt must be made with some misgiving, for definitions can convey little of the deep responsiveness with which such a poet as Spenser apprehends his myths, and of the richness and fullness of meaning which they have for him. The present study is limited, therefore, to an aspect which I think it is possible to isolate in terms of the main themes of these two books: the relating of material, through myth, so as to outline what Spenser calls the 'general intention.' Even so limited a treatment must distort, by the drastic omission which is necessarily involved, but that organizing function of Spenser's myths which I shall try to isolate is, at least, one which should suffer less than others from the hazard of definition. In the more recent of the many partial explications of The Faerie Queene, the third and fourth books have been, comparatively, little treated, except as they help to reveal the meaning of other books, as in the now time-honoured association of the Garden of Adonis with Guyon's Bower of Bliss. The most favored