Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is widely recognized as one of the greatest epic poems of the Elizabethan age. It may be also commonly assumed that Spenser’s poetry represents an archetypal convention of gender in the era. Though Spenser plays off the feminine conventions linking the figure of power, Queen Elizabeth with specific characters, for example, Una in Book I, traditional patterns of feminine stereotypes are still continually penetrated in Renaissance and Spenser’s portrayal of feminity to religious discourse which reflects, an undertone of fear of women (Norbrook, 120-123) or, an anxiety about female sexuality. This paper is a feminist reading on how the portrayal of Una, as an idealized woman embodied with chastity and beauty reflects a male anxiety about female sexuality and discourse reinforcing female as a subordinated role in Renaissance society.
Una, embodies a women ideal cohabiting innocence and chastity. During the Renaissance period, according to, “femine honor was constant, linked to sexuality and the necessity, for all classes of women, to maintain their chastity”. …show more content…
Being such an iconic Petrarchan lady, she must be ripped of her sexuality and objectified because female sexuality is deemed to be dangerous, triggering male castration anxiety. Women’s sexuality, regarded by men, is detrimental to their superiority, as it can manipulate men and defy their rationality as the case of the Redcrosse,Knight and Fraudubio . Male authority is derived from women’s weakness and passivity, all of which is embedded in Una as she is often portrayed as a woman over relying of her knights, if not her beauty. She also performs a maternal role of educating other characters, which is, in fact, a stereotypical woman’s duty in Protestant religion as well. Una, all in all, is a men’s ideal angel, that doomed to only be exist in men’s
Una, embodies a women ideal cohabiting innocence and chastity. During the Renaissance period, according to, “femine honor was constant, linked to sexuality and the necessity, for all classes of women, to maintain their chastity”. …show more content…
Being such an iconic Petrarchan lady, she must be ripped of her sexuality and objectified because female sexuality is deemed to be dangerous, triggering male castration anxiety. Women’s sexuality, regarded by men, is detrimental to their superiority, as it can manipulate men and defy their rationality as the case of the Redcrosse,Knight and Fraudubio . Male authority is derived from women’s weakness and passivity, all of which is embedded in Una as she is often portrayed as a woman over relying of her knights, if not her beauty. She also performs a maternal role of educating other characters, which is, in fact, a stereotypical woman’s duty in Protestant religion as well. Una, all in all, is a men’s ideal angel, that doomed to only be exist in men’s