Nikitenko Y.N. Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Robert Laneham’s Description of the Entertainment Devised by the Earl of Leicester to Celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Visit to the Kenilworth Castle as Parallel Texts [Digital Resource] // Vox medii aevi. 2018. Vol. 1(2). P. 85–104. URL: https://voxmediiaevi.com/vol-2-nikitenko
DOI: 10.24411/2587-6619-2018-00005
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Yulia Nikitenko
Master of Arts in Philology, Senior Librarian of the National Library of Russia (Saint Petersburg)
yulianikitenko86@gmail.com
Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Robert Laneham’s Description of the Entertainment Devised by the Earl of Leicester to Celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Visit to the Kenilworth Castle as Parallel Texts
In this article, Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Laneham’s description of Elizabeth’s visit to Kenilworth are both understood as mediums. Hence, behind the Laneham’s description there is another text — the text of the ritual itself, which encompassed Leicester’s hopes and ambitions, his self-representation and his attempts to construct an image of the queen. In fact, we benefit from the indirect view of the ritual given through the lens of Laneham’s description; as Laneham, observing this communication from the outside, sometimes describes the reaction of Elizabeth.
The Faerie Queene was written by a man who belonged to the same social group, maybe even to the same circle as the author of the description — in his youth Spenser together with Laneham were Leicester’s clients. Furthermore, the Faerie Queene may be regarded as another example of the application of the symbolic language of the Elizabethan court. The analysis shows that the poem and the entertainments do not simply imitate single formal elements of one another. On the contrary, the meaning of formally similar images differs drastically in these two texts.
The comparison of the symbolic language used in the poem with that used for the entertainments leads to the conclusion that visual similarity may be connected with completely different ideas and themes. In case of the Faerie Queene, they are related to visual images conceived by words of the poet in a reader’s mind. In the end, it becomes clear that the Arthurian legend, images conveying national sentiments and antique imagery are the most important sources from which Spenser and the organizers of the festival drew their material.
Key words: Kenilworth; Edmund Spenser; Robert Laneham; Early Modern England; Political Representation.