Abstract
This essay begins from the observation that Spenser has virtually no affective engagement with fauna, an observation supported with details from The Shepheardes Calender. Yet Spenser asserts the kinship of certain humans and certain animals, in moments throughout The Faerie Queene, especially its first two books. This kinship Spenser thinks out through the traditions of philosophical skepticism and its particular totem animal, the pig (as in Plutarch's Gryllus or Gelli's Circe), traditions that demote the human and human reason, and/or insist on the animal nature of the human. The essay considers not only Spenser's Grylle in FQ II.xii, but also the lion of FQ I.iii, who focuses the centrality of a virtue difficult for Redcrosse, that of fellow-feeling, or what we now call the problem of other minds.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 243-256 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Spenser Studies |
| Volume | 22 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2008 |