Wind in Spenser’s Isis Church

Abstract

This essay revisits The Faerie Queene’s Isis Church episode via a look back at Edgar Wind’s Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance. Upon recently rereading his book and encountering the intriguing embeddedness of Spenser within his foray into the symbolic worlds of the likes of Michelangelo, Veronese, Botticelli, and others, I wondered why Wind overlooked the Isis Church episode when expanding on his core concept of “pagan mysteries in the Renaissance.” In general, Spenserians have not found Wind’s intellectual-historical presuppositions and methods especially congenial. But a return to Wind’s study can actually serve as a kind of wake-up call for readers of the Isis Church episode. Should we conclude that Isis Church is best read, in a Windian framework, as a “failed mystery?” To what extent is Wind’s non-mention of Isis Church a spectral absent presence that should haunt any reading of the episode? My essay contends that a more positive outcome of Wind’s non-mention of Isis Church is its uncanny suggestion ...