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The Psychology of Memory in Spenser's Faerie Queene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Daniel C. Boughner
Daniel C. Boughner*
Affiliation:
Tufts College
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Extract

From Plato and Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen, through the medieval commentators, the Elizabethans inherited a body of complex psychological principles. An examination of these principles and their bearing on The Faerie Queene has so far been only casual and incidental. Since in Book ii, Canto ix, the poet combines one of the most widely used of medieval motifs—the conception of the body as a world, city, or castle—with certain current doctrines of psychology, such an inquiry is especially apposite. Spenser's use of the abundant contemporaneous literature of psychology affords material for an extended treatment such as that which Miss Anderson has made of Shakespeare's plays. The present study purposes to set forth one aspect of his system of psychology—his psychology of memory in the allegory of the Castle of Alma, to make clear the relationship of his system to the current Elizabethan doctrines, and to establish the purpose of certain departures from those doctrines.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , March 1932 , pp. 89 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1932

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References

1 For the motif in medieval literature, see C. L. Powell, Castle of the Body, SP, xvi, p. 196. Cf. Edwin Greenlaw, Some Old Religious Cults in Spenser, SP, xx, p. 221 n.

2 Ruth L. Anderson, Elizabethan Psychology and Shakespeare's Plays, Univ. of Iowa Humanistic Studies, iii, 4, 1927.

3 Faerie Queene, ii, ix.

4 Merritt Y. Hughes, Burton on Spenser, PMLA, xli, p. 561.

5 With the explanation of these and the anatomical details of the allegory which follows, the present study is not concerned. See editions of the Faerie Queene by R. E. N. Dodge, Cambridge edition (Cambridge, Mass., 1908); by Lilian Winstanley, Book ii (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1922); and by G. W. Kitchin, Book ii (Clarendon Press Series, 1877).

6 The singular construction of the Castle of Alma forms the basis for ingenious conjecture among scholars. In addition to the editions of the Faerie Queene mentioned, see Greenlaw, op. cit., 221 n., Miss Anderson, op. cit., 9, and Edward Dowden, Elizabethan Psychology, Atlantic Monthly, c (1907), p. 394.

7 Faerie Queene, ed. Dodge, ii, ix, 49, 1–3.

8 Miss Anderson, op. cit., 15 n., says that this second power is clearly a form of reasoning.

9 Phantastes, or the imagination. In the current article in PMLA, Classical Coinage in the Faerie Queene, J. W. Draper examines the etymology of Spenser's proper names. Phantasies, Professor Draper says, “Spenser seems to have formed from the noun, . Oddly enough, it can hardly be related to , a boaster. Could Spenser have been unacquainted with this word?”

10 Eumnestes, or memory. Draper, op. cit., traces this to , well, and , remember. Kitchin, op. cit., says the name indicates its bearer is of good memory, of “infinite remembrance.”

11 Anamnestes, or the reminder. Draper, op. cit., states that he “is named from his master by a kind of etymological analogy. He is the re-minder.” Dodge calls him the faculty of summoning up the memories. Kitchin says Anamnestes is the Reminder, from , the faculty by which the lost links of memory are recovered. “Ingenious critics suggest,” he declares, “that memory ought to need no helper, and propose to read Anagnostes, or the ‘Reader’; alleging the ancient libraries used to have a ‘Lector’ or appointed as an official in them. But Spenser knew well that Aged Memory always does need a ‘reminder’ to bring out hidden stores of knowledge.”

12 Another figure connected with memory is Mnemon, “Old Mnemon,” in iii, ix, 47, 4, and 51, 6. This name, Draper, op. cit., points out, means “remembrancer,” and is simply transliterated from . This character makes an insignificant appearance. His rôle appears to be identically that of Eumnestes.

13 Faerie Queene, ii, ix, 47, 6.

14 The usual term is fantasy. C. G. Osgood, in the Concordance to the Poems of Spenser (Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1915), does not note a single occurrence of the word imagination in the Faerie Queene.

15 The Knights pass through the rooms of the turret in this order.

16 Faerie Queene, ii, ix, 55, 1–4.

17 Arthur Tilley, Literature of the French Renaissance, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1904, v. i, pp. 206–208.

18 Faerie Queene, ii, ix, 58, 1–2.

19 Faerie Queene, ii, ix, 57, 5–9.

20 Ibid., ii, ix, 56, 3.

21 scrine. Spenser evidently uses this word in its Latin sense of a box for books and papers. The NED gives its English meaning as a box for the safe-keeping of valuables, specifically for the relics of saints.

22 Faerie Queene, ii, ix, 56, 7.

23 Ibid., ii, ix, 58, 3–8.

24 Dowden, op. cit., p. 394, is apparently not justified in classing Spenser with the Elizabethan thinkers who endorsed the view that each of the faculties could pass on ideas to its neighbor faculty. There is nothing in Spenser's allegory to support this theory, while there is, as the present writer hopes presently to show, a considerable argument against it.

25 Miss Anderson, op. cit., p. 16. For a discussion of the function of sense or apprehension proper to the “sensible” soul, the five outer senses, and the three inner (reason or judgment, imagination or fantasy, and memory), see also Dowden, op. cit., pp. 393 ff.

26 Ibid., p. 14.

27 Common sense signifies rudimentary perception. Miss Anderson, op. cit., p. 17.

28 Cell, ventricle, or womb—each of these names was in common use. Dowden, op. cit., p. 394.

29 Thomas Wright, Passions of the Minde in Generali. In Six Bookes. Corrected, enlarged, and with sundry new Discoveries augmented (London, 1630), p. 304.

30 Juan de Dios Huarte Navarro, Examen de Ingenios, The Examination of mens Wits, tr. out of the Spanish tongue by M. Camilli, Inglished out of the Italian by R. C(arew) (London, 1596), p. 51 ff.

31 Pierre Charron, Of Wisdome three bookes, tr. by Samson Lennard (London, 1658), p. 48.

32 Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum. tr. and enlarged by Stephen Batman under the title Batman vppon Bartholome, Eis Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum (London, 1582), Book iii, ch. 16.

33 John Davies of Hereford, Complete Works, 2 vols., A. B. Grosart ed., Chertsey Worthies' Library (Edinburgh, 1878), v. 1, Mirum in Modum, 6 ff.

34 Batman, op. cit., Book iii, ch. 16.

35 Miss Anderson, op. cit., p. 18.

36 Charron, op. cit., p. 47.

37 Huarte, op. cit., pp. 78–79.

38 Miss Anderson, op. cit., p. 17.

39 Batman, op. cit., Book iii, ch. 16.

40 John Davies of Hereford, op. cit., p. 6.

41 Sir John Davies, Works in Prose and Verse, A. B. Grosart Ed., 3 vols. Fuller Worthies' Library, v. 1, Nosce Teipsum, p. 112.

42 Huarte, op. cit., 78–79.

43 John Davies of Hereford, op. cit., p. 9.

44 Ibid., p. 7.

46 Miss Anderson, op. cit., pp. 38–39.

46 Charron, op. cit., p. 49.

47 Miss Anderson, op. cit., p. 38

48 Ibid., p. 18.

49 Robert Greene, Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse, A. B. Grosart ed., 12 vols. (London 1881–83), v. iii, p. 143 ff.

50 Sir John Davies, op. cit., p. 121.

61 Charron, op. cit., p. 67.

52 Faerie Queene, ed. Dodge, xxii.