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"Foolish men that prayse gin eke t'envy"

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Abstract:
In Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, scenes of armament and disarmament allegorize the way that idealized and degenerate forms of masculinity are forged. Armor, in Spenser, is less a physical than a psychological shield. Donned at the wrong time, the knights become cruel, untrustworthy, and apathetic. Removed at inappropriate junctures, they descend into lust, avarice, and gluttony. Spenser's epic models the self-fashioning by which gentleman could come to embody the harmony of Venus and Mars. Empedocles' principle of love and war--the idea that eros and strife must come together for the generation of life to occur--is central to Spenser's idea of exemplary masculinity as well as to his political and artistic vision of harmony. The epic models a paradigm of courtly masculinity that places a premium on intense emotional relationships between men, even as it divorces eros from the realms of martial honor and patriarchalism. Since Spenser's vision of self-fashioned masculinity depends upon his understanding of court culture and the woman presiding over it, I conclude my thesis by looking at the epic's critique of Elizabeth I's use of romantic tropes and erotic pageantry
Title: "Foolish men that prayse gin eke t'envy": armes, armor, and eroticism in Spenser's The Faerie Queene.
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Name(s): Desimone, Noah Ryan, author.
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Bibliography
Text-txt
Academic Theses.
Criticism, Interpretation, Etc.
Academic Theses.
Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation.
Issuance: monographic
Date Created: 2021
Other Date: 2021.
Publisher: University of West Florida,
Place of Publication: [Pensacola, Florida] :
Physical Form: electronic resource
Extent: 1 online resource (vi, 42 leaves)
Language(s): eng
Abstract: In Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, scenes of armament and disarmament allegorize the way that idealized and degenerate forms of masculinity are forged. Armor, in Spenser, is less a physical than a psychological shield. Donned at the wrong time, the knights become cruel, untrustworthy, and apathetic. Removed at inappropriate junctures, they descend into lust, avarice, and gluttony. Spenser's epic models the self-fashioning by which gentleman could come to embody the harmony of Venus and Mars. Empedocles' principle of love and war--the idea that eros and strife must come together for the generation of life to occur--is central to Spenser's idea of exemplary masculinity as well as to his political and artistic vision of harmony. The epic models a paradigm of courtly masculinity that places a premium on intense emotional relationships between men, even as it divorces eros from the realms of martial honor and patriarchalism. Since Spenser's vision of self-fashioned masculinity depends upon his understanding of court culture and the woman presiding over it, I conclude my thesis by looking at the epic's critique of Elizabeth I's use of romantic tropes and erotic pageantry
Identifier: 1296388542 (oclc), WFE0000781 (IID)
Note(s): by Noah Ryan Desimone.
Department of English, College of Arts and Social Sciences
Thesis (M.A.) University of West Florida 2021
Includes bibliographical references.
Also available in print.
Subject(s): Spenser, Edmund, 1552?-1599
Spenser, Edmund, 1552?-1599
Spenser, Edmund, 1552?-1599
University of West Florida
University of West Florida.
Faerie queene (Spenser, Edmund)
Library Classification: LD1807.F62k 2021 D475
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/uwf/fd/WFE0000781
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
Host Institution: UWF
Other Format: "Foolish men that prayse gin eke t'envy". (Print version :)
(OCoLC)1296390011

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