Author: Nicole Thrun

The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, Book 2 (Chapter 1)

When first reading the summary surrounding Sir Philip Sidney’s Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, I was genuinely surprised to find that it sounded like a mere Shakespearean comedy. You have disguises, as Pyrocles masks himself as a woman named Zelmane, and you have a wacky twist, in which the mother and father have both fallen in love with him. An example of this could be found in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a tale of disguise as well as misleading love. The adaption of this that so many of my generation know is the movie, She’s the Man, in which Amanda Bynes plays a girl, Viola, who dresses up like her brother and plays on the male soccer team at his school in order to prove others wrong.

In correlation to the Arcadia, where the father (of Pyocles desired love) falls in love with the fake female identity, in She’s the Man, a girl named Olivia falls in love with Viola’s impersonation as her brother. At the end, Viola has fallen in love with one of the male soccer players, who believes she is truly a man and is confused about his own feelings for her. In in the Arcadia, the daughter, Philoclea, is also confused about her feelings for someone she perceives to be a woman. Why are readers so fascinated by this wacky love turned upside down? While in real life these could be highly unrealistic, these stories have always entertained readers, presumably because you don’t really expect what is going to happen next.

Although on a more serious note, what is interesting about the Arcadia, is that the mother, Gynecia, sees through the disguise. In She’s the Man, rarely anyone knows the truth until the end. What I believe to be significant about this, is that it is possible that Gynecia is truly falling in love, rather than the false love which plagues her husband. Gynecia talks of the “passion of love” to “Zelmane” and accuses him of disguisement (Sidney 1043). In my eyes, I see this as a cry for the truth, in which she just wants to affirm her love to him, as would anyone so distraught with their own feelings. By seeing both the hilarity of the disguise, and the love that plagues mother and father, the reader can infer that while love can be cause for laughter, it can also be cause for deep internal troubles.

The Faerie Queene books 1 & 11

While reading the Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser, I was intrigued by      the symbolism throughout the first book. When describing the “lovely Ladie” (Una) with which our Red Cross Knight is riding with, Spenser repeats how her horse is “more white then snow” (1.1.4). Spenser then takes this symbolism one step further and proclaims that Una was “much whiter” than her horse (1.1.4). The color white is a common symbol of purity and innocence– therefore it is to be believed that our fair lady is the purest and most innocent lady in all the land. Spenser almost transcends her into being an almost angelic character, which correlates with her being an allegory for the Protestant Church, which Spenser thought to be the “one true church”.
I was also intrigued at the characterization of the monster “Errour”. Errour is described as a half serpent, half woman– disgusting and foul. I was quite fascinated by this illustration, due to the fact that it is mentioned several times how she is a mother to many other “monsters” or “impes”, and how it would be different if the monster was a man. By making our villain a woman, it implicates the already set prenotions that women are not only evil, but are to be feared, a thing below men (who will always prevail). I am now also aware of the biblical reference this makes: Eve and the serpent in the garden of eden. This can refer to the downfall of man even more so, due to the fact that it was a woman who made the first error on Earth, by giving into the temptations proposed by the serpent. Even more striking to me was that the Red Cross Knight’s description was very holy and contained numerous references to the Bible, and therefore it is to be inferred that Spenser is pitting the holiness of the church against the wicked ways of women during the battle between the Knight and Errour.
While The Faerie Queene does emulate characteristics found in The Canterbury Tales (Spenser’s favorite author being Chaucer), such as the syntax and style in which the book is organized, there are distinct differences. The Faerie Queene is less direct when personifying its allegory and symbolism, while The Canterbury Tales uses each pilgrim to represent their status or class in life (ironic and serious). Furthermore, The Faerie Queene is a more fantastical tale, using classic magical qualities in order to tell its stories, rather than stating its meaning in a more blunt story. I thought it interesting that Chaucer and Spenser would use their characters to portray people found in everyday life, which in turn I believe makes this  story that much more compelling.