chastity faerie queene
Rice University
Chastity as Ideal Sexuality in the Third Book of The Faerie Queene
Author(s): Lesley W. Brill
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 11, No. 1, The English Renaissance
(Winter, 1971), pp. 15-26
Published by: Rice University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/449815 .
Accessed: 08/11/2011 05:58
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
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Literature, 1500-1900.
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Chastityas Ideal Sexualityin the
Third Book of The Faerie Queene
LESLEY
W. BRILL
The chastity of Book III of The Faerie Queene is a complex and aggressive virtue derived from the nature of human sexuality and fully embodied in Britomart, the book 's almost bisexual heroine. The greatest threats to her successfully completing her quest result from the nature of the very energies upon which Britomart 's success depends. Her ardent sexuality is often as unruly as it is intense, and Britomart only stays afloat with difficulty upon her intestine "sea of sorrow." Britomart also encounters, in such figures as Malacasta and Busyrane, external threats to her quest 's completion. Having turned to bestiality and demonism precisely the same energies which drive Britomart 's chastity, Busyrane stands as Book III 's most powerfully evil figure. His masque and his tapestries provide an elaborate anatomy of antichastity. Florimell, the comic heroine of a
Chastity as Ideal Sexuality in the Third Book of The Faerie Queene
Author(s): Lesley W. Brill
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 11, No. 1, The English Renaissance
(Winter, 1971), pp. 15-26
Published by: Rice University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/449815 .
Accessed: 08/11/2011 05:58
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Rice University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Studies in English
Literature, 1500-1900.
http://www.jstor.org
Chastityas Ideal Sexualityin the
Third Book of The Faerie Queene
LESLEY
W. BRILL
The chastity of Book III of The Faerie Queene is a complex and aggressive virtue derived from the nature of human sexuality and fully embodied in Britomart, the book 's almost bisexual heroine. The greatest threats to her successfully completing her quest result from the nature of the very energies upon which Britomart 's success depends. Her ardent sexuality is often as unruly as it is intense, and Britomart only stays afloat with difficulty upon her intestine "sea of sorrow." Britomart also encounters, in such figures as Malacasta and Busyrane, external threats to her quest 's completion. Having turned to bestiality and demonism precisely the same energies which drive Britomart 's chastity, Busyrane stands as Book III 's most powerfully evil figure. His masque and his tapestries provide an elaborate anatomy of antichastity. Florimell, the comic heroine of a
Citations: " 'The Structure of Imagery in The Faerie Queene," UTQ, XXX, No. 2 (1961), 113. problem here see Josephine Waters Bennett, The Evolution of "The Faerie Queene" (New York, 1960), pp