(excerpted by Clifford Stetner)
 

CHAPTER 12

 

 

Spenser?s fascination with Platonism Continually manifests itself in his poetry.
 

Faerie Queene, there are numerous occasions where Spenser employs Platonic doctrines to suit his fictional needs; a salient example of this is in the Garden of Adonis episode (III. xxx), where Spenser reflects and refracts Platonic notions of the soul and of generation. Spenser draws on Platonic doctrines and assumptions in other poems as well. Must notably this occurs in the Fowre Hymnes, which trace the inter­relationship and integration of Platonic concepts of earthly and ideal love with their Christian counterparts.
 

5

The Variorum edition of Spenser?s works attributes an English translation of Axsodas (then thought so be by Plato to Spenser. Although there is not absolute certainty about this attribution
 

Boethius (whose consolation was transmitted to Spenser via Chaucer?s Boece), Bernard Silvestris, Alain de Lille (whom Spenser refers to by name in the Mutabilitie cantos), and Dionysius the Areopagite (whose angelic hierarchies are mentioned in Hymne of Heavenly Beautie, 11.85-98). As the notes to the Variorum edition of Spenser?s works confirm, Spenser was also familiar with the poetic and prose redactions of Platonism of such writers as Castiglione, Tasso, Leone Ebreo, and Giordano Bruno. Given the subject matter and phrasing of the Fowre Hymnes, it is virtually certain that Spenser read Ficino?s commentary on Plato?s Symposium, the well known De Inwre; and it may well be that Spenser read, Ficino?s 1492 translation of the Enneads, thus making Spenser one of the first English authors to read Plotinus directly.
 

Where the Fowre Hymnes assimilate Platonic theories of love, Mutabilitie incorporates the fundamental principle of Platonism, its ontological gradations of the universe, as an architectonic strategy. The hypostasis of Soul is represented in the confrontation of Mutabilitie and Jove (the World Soul) in canto VII; the higher hypostasis of Nous is personified in the numinous figure of Nature, who appears in canto seven; and the supreme hypostasis, the One above all and the source of all, coincides with the divine ineffability remarked on in canto vix (?). Mutabilitie examines how the cosmological and teleological structures of Neoplatonic thought bridge the gap between ?pagan? metaphysics and Christian doctrine;
 

An arguments that the Mutabilitie Cantos is an attempt at closure by Spenser to his unfinished Faerie Queene is made by William Blissett, who makes the cantos a detached retrospective
 

In Platonic thought, the introduction of time into the universe is signified by the descent of the Titans from Saturn (Chronos). This explains why Mutabilitie as ?Titanesse? (VII.vi.4) brings forth the pageant of the ?times and seasons of the yeare? (VII.vii.27) as proof of her sublunary powers. The Titans are also associated with the division of the One into many, as an adjective from Pico illustrates:

Soul. Jove is the higher, connective, static, eternal dimension of the World Soul; Mutabilitie, its lower, disruptive, dynamic, temporal dimension. Their antagonism exemplifies the tension at the level of the World Soul between order and disorder, stability and change, reason and irrationality, ascent to the unity of the One versus descent into the multiplicity of the sensible cosmos.

But in actuality, she is also beautiful; even Jove finds her irresistibly attractive:

Hers is the multiple beauty of the corporeal universe which arises from the inevitable mixture of good and evil in the lower worlds
 

The degeneration caused by the descent of quality into matter is reflected by the state of affairs in Ireland consequent to Diana?s indignant flight:

Thence-forth she left; and parting from the place,

There-on an heauy haplesse curse did lay,

To weet, that Wolves, where she was wont to space,

Should harboured be, and all those Woods deface,

And Thieues should rob and spoile that coast around (vIu.vi.55)
 
 

The belief in a tripartite cosmos enabled Renaissance Neoplatonists to view the three primary Plotinian hypostases as vestiges of the Holy...
 

... nous is the pagan equivalent to Christ as the eternal Logos. As a threshold figure mediating between visible and invisible
 

As an unmoved mover, nous combines essence and existence, being and becoming, unity and plurality, presence and transcendence, time and eternity. Spenser accords these paradoxical attributes to Nature:
 

Great Nature, euer young yet full of eld, Still moouing, yet unmoued from her sted; Vnseene of any, yet of all beheld. (VIII(?).vii.13)
 

The clearest indication that Nature is operating as the Spenserian equivalent to the Platonic nous is in Nature?s resolution of the debate between Mutabilitie and Jove.
 

Canto VII closes with a celebration of the mysterious unity that reigns over the universe. Mutabilitie is (?hastened and subdued, ?put downe and whist? (VII.vii.59). In turn, Jove is ?confirmed in his imperiall see? (VII.vii.59), restoring the hierarchical order in the World Soul. Having reconciled the two warring oppositions in the World Soul, Nature disappears ?whither no man wist? (VII.vii.59). Nature?s vanishing hints at the mystical ecstasies that Plotinus speaks of as resulting from a union with the Absolute One. Yet Nature?s final words are a reminder that this transcendent harmony cannot be known, described, or realised with the limits of ?temporality: ?But time shall come that all shall changed bee, / And from thenceforth, none no more change shall see? (VII.vii.59).
 

...whether by accident or design, the last canto is entitled, ?The viii. Canto, unperfite?. Perfection in its absolute eschatological sense will always remain incommunicable and incomprehensible.
 

The crucial difference lies in the personal relationship between God and soul found in Christianity but absent from Neoplatonic conception of a transcendent, impersonal One. The intellectual solace provided by the concept of the Platonic One does not match the spiritual comfort of a caring and concerned creator. The poem ends unambiguously not with a hymn to the Neoplatonic One but to the God of Christianity: ?O that great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight? (VII.viii.2).