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    Allegory: The Renaissance Mode

    Author(s): Mark L. CaldwellSource: ELH, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Winter, 1977), pp. 580-600Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2872426 .

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    ALLEGORY: THE RENAISSANCE MODEBY MARK L. CALDWELL

    In the House of Busyrane we meet Feare himself, in what C. S.Lewis would have called the allegorical core of Book III of TheFaerie Queene:Next himwas Feare, all arm'd from opto toe,Yet thoughthimselfenot safeenoughthereby,But feard ach shadow moving o and fro,And his owne armes when glittering e did spy,Or clashingheard,he fast way did fly,As ashes pale ofhew, and wingyheeld;And evermoreon daungerfixt is eye,Gainst whomhe alwaies bent a brasen shield,Which his righthand unarmedfearefully id wield.'

    Feare is identified as soon as we see him: his physical characteristicsfall into place easily as natural and quickly recognizable features ofour conscious understanding of the emotion. Many of Feare's traitsare so little surprising that they have the ring of proverbs, ofreassuringly familiar old saws that rathershore up and confirmthanchallenge or extend our previous knowledge: he "feard each shadowmoving to and fro;" "evermore on daunger fixthis eye." Fearediscloses his meaning to us plainly and is on his way again at once,followed by "Hope, . . . a handsome Mayd" in the next stanza.Compare with this the following passage from FrancescoColonna's Hypnerotomachia, The Strife of Love in a Dreame.2Poliphilus, the narrator, tears himself from his admiration of anallegorical elephant to inspect the gate of a mysterious structure nwhich he has found himself. The gate contains some hieroglyphs,which Poliphilus firstdescribes, then interprets, as follows:

    First,the horned scalpe of an oxe, with two tooles ofhusbandryfastned to the hornes.An altarstandingupon goates feete,with a burningfire loft,onthe foreside whereof there was also an eie, and a vulture.After hata bason and an ewre.A spindle ful oftwind, an old vessel fashioned with the mouthstopped and tied fast.580 Allegory: The Renaissance ModeELH 44 580-600 (1977)Copyright c 1977 by The Johns Hopkins UniversityPressAll rightsof reproduction in any form reserved.

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    A sole and an eye in thebale thereof nd twobranches traversedone ofOlive, an other ofPalmetree.An Anchor and a Goose.An olde lampe, and a hand holding of it.An ore of ancient formewith a fruitefull live branchfastned tothe handle.Two grapling yronsor hookes.A Dolphin and an Arke close shut ...Which ancient maner of writing, as I take it, is thus to beunderstoode.Ex labore Deo natura sacrifica liberaliter paulatim reducesanimum Deo subjectum. Firmam custodiam vita tua, miserisorditergubernando senebit, incolumemque servabit.

    Clearly, Colonna composed this fiction according to a differentunderstanding of the nature of allegory than the one operant inSpenser's description of Feare. Nothing, either in the engraveddevice, or in Poliphilus' description of it,would suggest the Latinphrase it is meant allegorically to signify.The connection must beforged by the writer,acting ex post facto as a commentator on hisown invention,as a kind of hierophant3who must step out ofhis roleas a creator ofallegorical fictions to reveal the hidden sense of thoseMark L. Caldwell 581

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    fictions.Yet when we look back on the litera, newly arrmied iththehidden sense, the connection seems arbitraryor (in RosemondTuve's term4) mposed.In the introduction to his crucial study of the mode, AngusFletcher5 defines allegory as a literary form which turns anapparently open and direct statement into something else; whichsomehow encodes hidden meaning on the literalsense ofthewords.Fletcher consciously avoids examining thisphenomenon within theconfines of any historical period, in favorof a rigorously heoretical,non-historical approach. In this essay I wish to take up Fletcher'slead, exploring the methods bywhich Renaissance writersconnect,or make itpossible fortheir readers to connect, litera with hiddensense. Many critics6have studied the litera and the hidden sense asseparable entities, noting and examining the often strange andsurprising ways in which the latter can be imposed on the former.Still others7 have viewed allegory as rather a catch-all term,including several related yet distinct kinds of iterarydevices, eachinfluencedby a differentntellectual tradition, lending intoa richlycomplex (or cheerfully confused) whole. But no one, to myknowledge, has examined the literarymethods Renaissance writersuse to transform, or to make it possible for their audience totransform, he litera of an allegorical fiction into an appropriatehidden sense.I hope this approach will help us understand and appreciateRenaissance allegory, especially its greatest achievement, TheFaerie Queene. Yet I want to avoid concentrating too narrowly onSpenser. Even thoughhis poetry s both the dominant force in andthe sea-mark of allegorical poetry in the English Renaissance, ourunderstanding of Spenser will be increased by viewing hisallegorical technique as part of a larger context.Learning how hispredecessors and contemporariesunderstood allegory and how theyused it in theirpoetry, will allow us to see Spenser more plainly,more objectively, by standing back fromhim a bit.In a recent book, Michael Murrin8advanced the theorythat theRenaissance allegoristwished simultaneously to reveal and concealthe truth,which would open itself to the reader keen enough tointerpret he allegorical fiction,but remain closed to the many, whowere satisfied with and seduced by the superficial felicities of thelitera.Many Renaissance writersendorse this idea in theory.But inpractice, most Renaissance allegories, no matterhow hermetic theymay superficiallyappear, are ultimately meant not to cover but to582 Allegory: The Renaissance Mode

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    reveal the hidden sense throughthe litera. The ignorantmany are afictionmeant to enforce the hidden sense on the reader by arousinghis vanity,persuading him thathe is a specially talented charactertobe able to uncover it. We are not so much confrontedby a conflictbetween thewish tohide and the desire to show forth, s bya conflictin the methods by which revelation is to be accomplished.Sometimes we are shown the hidden sense forthrightly,s withFeare in the Spenser example. Atothers-Colonna's hieroglyphs arean extremeexample-the writer eads the reader to thehidden sensethroughdeliberately intricate paths,making a greatpoint of the darkmysteriousness of the proceedings, often arriving at an end pointwhich a modern reader finds utterly imcompatible with thebeginning, but which the Renaissance reader apparently had notrouble accepting. I want here to explore the ways in which thedistance between litera and hidden sense can be traversed inRenaissance allegorical poetry,and to discuss some of the literaryeffectswhich can be achieved during the trip. I am not so muchconcerned with our startingpoint in the litera, or our destination inthe hidden sense, as in the modes by which one can be transformedinto the other.Many intellectual traditions affected the writing of allegory, butthe classical and Renaissance rhetoricians provide the best rationalefor an explanation of the kind of allegorical linkage illustrated bySpenser's Feare. By contrast, the vastly influential tradition ofmulti-level scriptural exegesis best accounts for the mode ofconnection in Colonna's invention. The collision between these twomodes of allegorical linkage produced, I believe, a thirdmethod oflinking litera with hidden sense, which I am calling the dramaticmode. This thirdmode lay midway between the two extremes, andin blending them allowed fornew literaryeffects n the writingofallegory.

    The Rhetorica ad Herennium9 sets the pattern for all futurerhetoricians from Quintilian through Wilson, Day, Rainolde,Puttenham and Peacham, by classing allegory not as a structuralprinciple capable of governing the composition of heroic poetry,butas a "manner of speech," in Latin "oratio," a member of the classcalled "figuresof diction," "exornationes verborum." This featureofthe rhetoricaltraditionhas been noticed before; its influence on thewritingof allegory has, ifanything,been exaggerated. It lends itselfto the argument, made most forcefully by Paul Alpers'0 in hisMarkL. Caldwell 583

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    extremely nfluentialPoetry ofThe Faerie Queene, thatSpenser andother allegorical writers formed their compositions by thecontinuous but constantlyshifting pplication ofallegory as a noncedevice, ratherthan as a conceptual plan which consistently governsall the details of the inspiration.'1But a more important feature of the rhetorical tradition is itsdemand that allegory must be clear, the link between litera andhidden sense explicit. The tropemustdeliver itsmomentaryforce atonce, then go itsway without clouding the sense or obstructingthemomentum of the argument of which it is, after all, only a part.Quintilian12 sees obscurity as a fatal flaw, and Renaissance writersfollow him in providing copious examples ofallegory, the commonthreadamong which is thattheydisclose themselves immediately tothe reader or listener, and that the interpretation strike him asunforced. Wilson's definition in the Arte of Rhetorique is a goodexample:

    An allegorie is none other thyng,but a Metaphore usedthroughoutwholesentence,orOration.As inspeakyng gainstwickedoffendour,might aythus.Oh Lorde,his naturewas soevill,and hiswitte o wickedlybente,thathe ment obouge theshippe,wherehe himselfe ailed, meanyng hathe purposedthedestruction f his owne countrie. t is evill puttyngtrongwineintoweakevesselles,that s tosay t s evilltrustyngomewomenwithweightiematters. he English ProverbesgatherdebyJhonHeywood helpe wel in thisbehaulf, hewhiche commenly renothyng lles butAllegoriesand darckedevised sentences.'3The appeal toproverbs as the best example ofallegoria is a commonnote. Proverbs, like the other examples Wilson and the otherrhetoricians supply, all disclose their hidden senses immediately,eitherthroughassociations they already have forthe reader, or by agloss from he author. The underlying assumption which allows theclarityall the rhetoricians insist upon is thatthe words ofthe tropewill either themselves imply, or will be arranged by the author toimply, the allegorical interpretation. Even the words therhetoriciansuse in theirdefinitions ofthe trope imply intentionalityon the part of the author: "permutatio" in the Rhetorica adHerennium, "inversio" in Quintilian (Institutio VIII.vi.44), an"inversion of sence by transport" in Puttenham (Arte of EnglishPoesie [London, 1589], p. 128). It is the writer,not the reader, whomust permutate, invert or translate.It is deceptive to conclude from he placement ofallegory amongstylistic mbellishments ratherthan inventio ordispositio that t is a584 Allegory:The Renaissance Mode

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    casual device, only applied consistentlyfor short stretches,withoutimport for the form given to the work as a whole. Renaissancerhetoricians repeatedly define allegory as metaphor appliedthroughout a whole sentence, or a "whole and entier speach,''14"Csentence' meaning of course not a grammatical sentence in themodern sense, but a whole thought, "an indefinite portion of adiscourse or writing."15 Rhetorical tradition does, however,prescribe an organic relationship between the litera and the hiddensense, which must somehow be "put there" by the writer,either inthe words themselves, in the arrangementof those words, or, failingthat, in a gloss. There is no doubt on the reader's part, and nodramatic hesitation by the writer as to which to choose of the manypossible hidden senses.Take, for example, the appearance of Faith in Prudentius'Psychomachia; she is, like Spenser's Feare, or like his seven deadlysins in The Faerie Queene 1.4, an example of the rhetoricalmode inallegory:

    Faithfirsthefield of doubtful attleseeks,In careless rusticdress,with shouldersbare,Withflowingocksand naked armsexposed;For in hersudden zeal fornew conflicts,She takesno thought f weapons orofshield,But trusting er stoutheart nd unclad limbs,She risks hehazardsofa savage fray.16

    Faith's naked simplicity,the lack ofneed foraccoutrement beyondher own strength, re all familiarattributesof thevirtue.Even wherethe details supplied do not clearly figureforth amiliartraitsoffaith,we feel no doubt that a closer examination would supply thenecessary connection. There is no tension, no possible conflict,between thebeing who appears beforeus in the litera ofthepassage,and the abstraction she represents: they interpenetrate each othercompletely.Prudentius' description, like Spenser's, is typical of the rhetoricalmode in yet anotherway: it is sequential. We are meant toread eachimage separately, as Alpers does, not strenuously attempting toreconcile it with the one thatfollows. The images, as Alpers says,provoke immediate uncritical assent, not inviting doubt, notsurprisingor shocking us, notmakingus stop to examine themmoreclosely. We are notmeant toponder each detail of the description orfit t nto a metaphysically convincing whole, but todigest it withoutthinking.Because the rhetoricianwishes to persuade his audience,Mark L. Caldwell 585

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    he must keep controlover theirresponse, preventtheirseizing on anindividual point and making an issue of it to the detrimentof thewhole.It thus does not matter if individual images in an allegoricaldescription in the rhetorical mode are not always mutuallyconsistent; that, say, Spring in The Faerie Queene 7.7.2817 firstappears as a human being "all dightin leaves of flowres" which twolines later are incongruously said to provide nests for "'a thousandbirds." If the images of spring were startling, bscure, provocative,or in any otherway called undue attention to themselves, the readerwould immediately object. But the imagery s familiar,plain-spoken,folksy, reassuringly proverbial. Our critical faculties are notstimulated, but rather ulled.When used in a complicated, sometimes murky poem like TheFaerie Queene, rhetorical allegory provides a rock of comfortablesolidity, assuring the reader that litera and hidden sense can belinked plainly and simply, perhaps giving him the courage to tackleother allegorical tropes in which the link is more difficult o see.The rhetorical tradition forces the writer to establish a linkbetween litera and hidden sense so exhaustive that we mayfeel theconnection has been deprived of mystery, hat we come upon the

    writer's invention after the stressful but fascinating process ofdiscovery is done. Though easy to understand and reassuringlyunder the architectonical control of the writer, rhetorical allegorycan have the disadvantage of seeming schematic, diagrammatic,dead. Expected to exude an aura of darkness, ofmystery, fpotentialobscurity made triumphantlyclear, it was most often remarkablefor ransparent implicity:the hidden sense springsout of the literaas quickly and neatly as a kernel of corn pops.Unlike rhetoric,the tradition of allegorical exegesis of the Bibleofferedno simple definitions. It took shape strictly s a method ofinterpretation,a potpourri, not always consistent, of devices bywhich the hidden sense of a pre-existing fiction could beunderstood. It provided no guidelines for hewriterofan allegoricalfiction. Because it reached its greatest importance as a way ofinterpreting scripture,18 he inexhaustible mine of God's truth, tfollowed thata right-thinking eader mightfindmeanings without

    limit n each passage, and no one could exhaust all its hidden senses.The exegete, no matterhow much he mightrespect the itera, did notfeel a need to sharply define the connection between it and the586 Allegory: The Renaissance Mode

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    hidden ense, nd,didnot npractice emand hat uch connectionbe effectedby the language of the Bible itself.19Though its influence on the secular literature ofthe Middle Ageshas been disputed,20 the exegetical method had a profound if notentirelybeneficial effecton Renaissance allegorical poets and theirreaders. Allegory written in the rhetorical mode put all theresponsibility in the hands of the poet. But the typical scripturalexegete looked first o his own a priori knowledge of divine truth,and only afterward at the language ofhis text. In spite of some lipservice to the integrity of the litera, there was no sense that itslanguage must guide the reader to hidden sense. This tradition hadan impact on Renaissance critics and poets, who often provideelaborate devices for he reading ofallegory, and stillmore elaborateexamples of such devices put to use. Yet they rarely display morethan a passing interest n how the inventor ofan allegory has forged alink between its litera and its hidden sense, or reveal any idea thatthe language of the poem ought to contain such a link.Harington's preface to the Orlando Furioso affords the mostconcise and convenient statement of the Renaissance understandingof the four senses as they might be applied to nonscripturalliterature:

    The ancientpoets have indeed wrapped as it were in theirwritings iverse ndsundrymeanings,whichthey all thesensesor mysteries hereof.First of all forthe litterall ence (as theutmost arke or ryne) hey et downeinmanner f n historie heactsand notableexploitsof somepersons worthymemorie: henin the same fiction, s a second rine, . . theyplace the Morallsence profitable orthe active life ofman,approvingvertuousactions ndcondemning hecontrarie.Manie times lso under heselfesame words they comprehend some understanding ofnaturallPhilosophie, or somtimesofpolitike governement,ndnow and then of divinitie: and these same sences thatcomprehend o excellentknowledgewe call theAllegorie,whichPlutarchdefineth obe when onethingstold, ndbythat notheris understood.21Harington echoes the rhetorical definition,but with the differencethat forhim,the litera does not reveal but ratherconceals the hiddensense. Because perceived surface hides the real import,the burdenof effortsubtly shifts from the writer to the reader, by whosesophistication, intelligence, and presumed doctrinal soundness thehidden sense must be discovered. Reading thus becomes therestoration of severed or unmade connections rather than the alertMark L. Caldwell 587

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    discovery of subtly hidden ones. The following example ofallegorical interpretation,22 romHarington's Preface, is germane:Perseussonne ofJupiters fainedbythePoets to have slaineGorgon, nd, after hat onquest atchieved, o have flownup to

    heaven.The historicall ence is this. erseusthe onne ofJupiter,slew Gorgon,a tyrant n that country Gorgonin Greekesignifietharth), nd was . . . exalted by men up unto heaven.Morally t signifiethhismuch: Perseus a wise man, sonne ofJupiter,ndewed withvertue rombove,slayeth inne and vice,a thing ase & earthly ignified y Gorgon,nd so mounteth p totheskieofvertue. tsignifiesn one kindofAllegorie husmuch:the mind of man being gottenby God, . . . vanquishing theearthlinesse of this Gorgonicallnature, ascendeth up to theunderstanding f heavenly things, of high things,of eternalthings.... This is thenatural llegory, ecause man is]oneof hechiefeworksofnature. t hath also a morehighand heavenlyAllegorie,thatthe heavenlynature,daughterofJupiter, . .severed tselfeat last from hese earthly odies,and flewup onhigh, and there remaineth for ever. It hath also anotherTheological Allegorie: hat he angelicall nature, aughter fthemosthigh God, . . . killing& overcommingll bodily substance,signified y Gorgon, scended into heaven.23

    Harington credits the fabulists for their ingenuity in concealing"these deepe mysteries of earning, and, as itwere, [covering] themwith the vaile offables and verse."24 But Harington's real emphasisis on interpretation, ot composition. He moves away from he literauntil its outlines are destroyed by the theological interpretation:Perseus changes sex to become "the angelicall nature, daughter ofthe most high God." Harington, like other commentators,movesfroma gloss natural to the context of the fable, to one which noconceivable wording, nor even a wordless abstract image of itscontent, could suggest.25 Praise forthe fabulist's ingenuity is notgrounded inany attempt o explain how thepoet contrives toplant inthe litera the seeds of such a far-fetchedhidden sense. The fableinstructs not by concealing a lesson in virtue, but through thecomplete disintegration of its literal sense before the triumphantprogress of the intepretation.Harington's commentary to the Orlando is another case in point,an important one because it follows a tradition26 of Italiancommentatorsand establishes thereby the continuityof the mode.Haringtonmaintains, as in the Preface, a rough distinction in eachbook between the moral and the allegory, a more specific harkingback to the medieval four-level approach than most other writers588 Allegory: The Renaissance Mode

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    afford.But in outlining the moral for each canto, Harington merelysummarizes, with no remarkable distortion of the litera, the chiefmoral problem facing the principal characters in each episode:In the hardadventures fAngelica,we may note how perilous athingbeautie is if t be not especially garded with the grace ofGod, and with vertue of the minde. .. . In Orlandos dreame wemay see how unquiet thoughtes re bred in the mynde of thosethat are given over to the passion of love or ambicion orwhatsoever lse may be understoodby Angelica. Lastly in thatOrlando abandons his Prince and country n their greatestextremities,e mayobservetheuncomely nd carelesse actes thatdishonest r unordinate]ove do provoke ven thenoblestunto fonce theyget harbourntheirmyndes, nd be notoverruledwithreason and grace.27

    Here, there is nothing thatdoes not rise naturally fromthemes anymodern reader would be likely to see, even in a narrowly realisticreading of the story. But when Harington moves to an exposition ofthe allegorical sense, we depart from any understanding that theremust be a palpable connection between litera and hidden sense.There is little kinship between what Ariosto's verse suggests to amodern reader and what Harington sees in it. We find,for xample, asurprising explication of the falconer who accosts Rogero at thebeginning of canto 8, accompanied by a horse, a dog, and a hawk:

    The formerAllegorieis here continued ofRogeros flying romAlcina bywhichmust still be understood, manreformingiscourse of life and flyingfrom ensualitie and pleasure: nowwhereas t s sayd n thisbooke thatAlcynasmanorher faulknerwithhishorse,haukeand doggedid impeach Rogerospassage, Itake t thatbythese foure re ment the fourepassions thatmosttrouble hemyndewhen tbeginsto encline tovertue, amelybythe servant earemaybe understood,which is ever servileandbase, bythehawke covetousnes hat s everseekingnewpray ndisnever atisfied: ythedogge greefe nddiscontentementhat salway byting nd envying nd greeving t otherswell doing: bythehorse sunderstoodnordinatoy,which s inall otherkinde nenemie to vertue and constancie.28Harington's interpretationdoes not rise fromanythingAriosto hasput in the text,even though it is not irreconcilable with the moral:Ruggiero is leaving the garden ofworldly pleasure, and these are thepassions one would expect him to fightin so doing, though theymake up neither a complete nor an entirelyconsistent list.Haringtonmerely inserts into the narrative the passions commonly associatedMark L. Caldwell 589

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    with each beast in Pliny or in medieval and Renaissance bestiaries.29The trouble fora modern reader is that Ariosto has provided in histext no receptacle that legitimately invites the insertion.When an interpreterof someone else's poem, a critic or scholarlike Harington, Sandys, or Natalis Comes30 applies the exegeticalmethod, we face only a gloss we may not accept. But when a poetwriting allegory was affected by scriptural interpretation, moredifficult roblem was likely to arise: a confusion stemming from hewriter's double role as an interpreter who extracts meaning frompoetry, nd as a maker who puts meaning into it. t was thuspossiblefor writer o be muddled about how farhis chosen hidden sense hadactually to be "in" the litera, to think that he had written meaninginto his poem which a modern reader, even one familiar withRenaissance thought, could never discover without the poet'sexplanation afterthe fact.Parts of The Faerie Queene, for example, allow the reader toanticipate a meaning which at first ies hidden under a deceptivesurface,defying nterpretation, ut which is then revealed suddenly,surprisingly, hough at the inevitable expense of a felt connectionbetween litera and hidden sense. The anticipation may quickly giveway to disappointment for modern, ifnot for Renaissance reader.A case in point is the appearance ofBelphoebe in Books III and IV.Apart fromher apparent nobility, and the strength f the virtue thatenvirons her beauty, there is little in her that suggests QueenElizabeth to the unalerted reader; still less the recondite idea ofElizabeth's body natural. Yet Spenser as interpreter, outside thepoem, makes the connection explicit:

    For considering he beareth wo persons, he one of most oyallQueene or Empresse, he other f mostvertuous nd beautifullLady,this atter art nsomeplaces I doe expresse nBelphoebe,fashioning ernameaccording oyour wne excellent onceipt fCynthia.31Spenser assumes theprivilege of a writer n the exegetical tradition,grafting x post facto a hidden sense not welded organically to thelitera in the poem itself.Spenser intends to enrich, to make subtlethe role of Belphoebe in the poem. He means us to understand byBelphoebe something more than a line-by-linereading ofthe stanzasaboutherwould yield us. Yet a modernreader is likelytofeel that heconnection is imposed, not sharing any contact with the poetryexcept in the ingenuity of Spenser as interpreter.Some of the early cantos in Fletcher's Purple Island offer yet590 Allegory: The Renaissance Mode

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    moreglaringexample ofthe same phenomenon. Take the allegoricalrepresentationof the abdomen in canto 2:UTheotherfram'd ofcommon matter, llThis lower region girtswith strongdefence;More long then round,with double-builded wall,Though single oftenseems to slightersense;Withmanygates, whose strangestpropertiesProtect this coast from ll conspiracies;Admittingwelcome friends,excluding enemies.uPeritonaeum which we call the rimmeof the belly) is a thinnemembranetakinghis name from ompassing the bowels; round,but longer: everywhere double, yet so thinne,that tmay seembut single. It hathmanyholes, thatthe veins, arteriesand otherneedfull vessels mighthave passage both in, & out.32

    The first hing apparent to a modern reader is that the explicatoryglosses are longerthanthe stanzas theyaccompany. There is so littlein the poetryto guide the reader from itera to the proper hiddensense thatFletcher is required to expend as much effort xplainingas composing it.The gloss in factreads more easily thanthe stanzas,which are rhythmically wkward and syntacticallycrabbed, out ofapparent haste to meet theexigencies ofrhyme. n these early cantosthe reader is continually tempted to read the notes instead of thepoem.Nothing in the "double-builded wall" in stanza 22 suggests theperitoneum,because Fletcher does not imbue his description withanythingthe reader can intuitivelyconnect with the qualities of aliving organism. Fletcher feels no need to make the litera strikeeither our conscious or subconscious response in a way akin to thatin which the hidden sense will strikeus when it is uncovered, thuspreparing us for the revelation, allowing us to assent to it when itoccurs. Fletcher does not thinkabout the body as he thinks out thelanguage by which he describes the geography ofthe island; he isnot able to produce a real conveniency (in the Renaissance sense,implying a mutual suitableness or conformity)between the twospheres.Yet the Renaissance reader would not have objected as we do; itdid not violate, but in fact fell in with,his habits ofreading poetry.Witness the glosses writtenby JohnDixon in Lord Bessborough'scopy of The Faerie Queene, which show no more need than doesFletcher for a clear hint in the litera to hidden sense. Dixoninterprets hebetrothalofUna toRedcrosse in 1.12.36 as the union oftruthto the church effected by the Elizabeth's accession to theMark L. Caldwell 591

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    throne: "The Church and the Lambe Christe united by god himselfahappy trothwherby peace hath beine continewed 39 ye [i.e., thethirty-nine ears since Elizabeth's coronation in 1558]: the holy cityore temple of God are Light with the glory of god: which is theLambe."33 No such reader would have found the notes toThePurpleIsland obtrusive.Yet, paradoxically, ifthe interpretation fallegory is multifarious,even self-contradictory, et there is an underlying confidence thatthebest allegorical worksdo form consistentwhole, and that ll theindividual tropes could be marshalled into the ranks of a singlecoordinated army, if only the skill or leisure of the commentatorpermitted it. This phenomenon goes back to the verybeginning ofscriptural exegesis. Philo Judaeus, in some ways the father of thetradition, s on the one hand adamant thatthe allegorical method hasclear and consistent rules, which, rigorously applied, wouldeventually expose the very heart of scripture. Yet in practice, hejumps from one "rule" of interpretation to another, observing nopattern discernible by a modern reader. And his insistence thatevery good allegory should be consistent and unified, and theinterpretation f t comparably scientific and methodical, coexistingwith a cheerful and profuse disorder in practice, is inheritedby theRenaissance. Thus Harington includes "A Briefe and SummarieAllegorie of Orlando Furioso" atthe end ofhis translation,promisinga systematicoutline ofthepoem's darkconceit,but delivering onlyaprecis of themain characters' moral qualities and the significance oftheiradventures, interspersed withmore detailed interpretations fshortsegments of the poem. Harington's commentary s a thing ofpatches and shreds, in spite of his promise to expose "the veriekyrnell and principall part, or... the marrow," separating it from"

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    Spenser's letter to Ralegh are not surprising. Like his con-temporaries, Spenser assumes the consistency of his allegorysimultaneously as he tats up a rich lace of allegorical details that fitneither the general plan, nor each other. It would be dangerous toassume that the letter proves Spenser's plan for the poem wasincomplete, or that it would have made more sense had it beenwrittenby a still-living Spenser able to look back on the completedtwelve (or more) books. It is equally doubtful that sufficientingenuity or insight will supply links in the letterwhich may beobscure to the casual reader butwhich stood out clearly in Spenser'smind. In the exegetical tradition llegory was a method,envisionedas systematicyetnever systematized,bywhich a reader read a poem,and notby which a writerconstructed one. There is thus a peculiarbalance between faith n the ultimate consistency ofmajorallegory,combined with a practicaldenial ofthatrigorousnessin the controlofdetail which such consistency would imply.When Spenser set himselfto incorporate nto The Faerie Queene'sheroic frame a "continued Allegory,or darke conceit," he found anextensive body ofrelevant iterature hatguided the interpretation fthe allegorical poem, but not the building of it. There was a longtraditionof ppreciation for healmost tropical tangle ofmeanings anallegorical trope could take on as ii grew, but to the averageRenaissance reader,the letterof a textwas about as sacrosanct as wasthe will inA Tale of a Tub.If the exegetical mode lacks the organicism modern readersdemand, it also has strengths.The disjunction itproduces betweenlitera and hidden sense allows allegory to take on a drama, afascination,which the rhetoricaltraditiondoes not afford. nstead ofan invention which at once propels itself into a new sense withclarity and dispatch, the exegete's understanding, his almostpredatory nstinctfor he unpredictable meaning lyingbeneath thelitera, allows us to feel thatthehidden sense lies excitinglyunder adeceptive surface, to emerge with dramatic suddenness or withtantalizing slowness at the bidding of the writer.The allegoricaltrope gains the power to surprise; it is unpredictable, stimulating; tgives the illustion of being alive. Belphoebe is a more tantalizinglymysteriouscreation than Feare is; she promises us more, even ifweare disappointed after he fact when Spenser tries to explain her inthe Letter to Ralegh. The rhetorical definition often appears topreclude the possibility of a subphenomenal connection. Theexegetical tradition llows for connection between rind and kernelMark L. Caldwell 593

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    so tenuous hat tcourts hedanger f eeming rbitrary,elying nthe aprice f he nterpreter.et traises hepossibilityfdrama nthe iteral ense, llowsformeaning hat oes not losedownon thereaderwith hemechanical lacrity f sprungmousetrap,ut ies nwaitas hidden potentialityn thecharacters,ventsor scenesthewritervokes.There s a possiblebridge o the gapbetweenthe rhetoricalndthe exegeticaldefinitions, thirdmode,which demandsthat hewriterarefullyontrol hesurprisingmergence fhidden sensefromitera, utwithout eprivingtof tsmysterynd turningt ntoa mererhetoricalrope.No Renaissancewriter hat knowofeverarrived t a definitionf his hird,ramaticmode;but tdid existn

    practice s a kindof allegorywhich haredcertain eatures f therhetoricalnd exegeticalmodes,combininghem na new way.Acase inpoint sthe ppearance fMammonnBook I ofThe FaerieQueene.The hidden ense s connected othe itera, horoughly,utgradually nd dramaticallyy the languageof the stanza,whichtransmitsseriesof ubtle motionalignals othereader, raduallyforcing imto look beyond he itera:At asthe [Guyon] ame unto gloomy lade,Cover'dwithboughes nd shrubs rom eavens ight,Whereas e sittingoundnsecret hadeAnuncouth,alvage, nd uncivilewight,Ofgriesly ew, nd fowle ll favour'dight;His facewith mokewastand ndeyeswerebleard,His head and beardwith outwere ll bedight,His cole-blacke andsdid seeme tohave beene seardIn smithes ire-spittingorge,ndnayles ike clawesappeard.36

    Thesignalwordhere s "secret" nthe hirdine. t alerts s that heglade is notmerely neutralbackground:t is chargedwith anemotionalignificance;thas some resonance eyond hefact f tsphysical xistence.tsuggests moodconnectednsomewaywithhumanemotions.This forcesus to connectthe settingwith thecharacternit.Everyreaderknows, t once and intuitively,s soonashereads"secret," hat hecondignity,heominous urtivenessfthegrove s somehowgoing o becomea reflectionf he characterwhoresides n it. The response s automatic,ubconscious,nd Ithink lmostuniversal.Although penserhas notdestroyed heliteralpresenceofthe grove n his reader'smind, s Haringtondestroys erseus's sex, he has conditionedusto think f t,without s594 Allegory: he RenaissanceMode

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    yet driving to any conclusion, as more than a grove; to dimly foreseein it some connection with a promised non-literal evel of meaning.He has in short concealed within the litera a controlling devicewhich sensibly propels the reader away from it in a particulardirection, and implants the expectation of a translatio. When theman who inhabits the grove is named Mammon, and his "meaning"is finally disclosed, we feel that our expectation has beenappropriatelyyetnot routinelyfulfilled.We do notfeel the litera hassuddenly been wrenched out ofall admissible context.The hiddensense has, by whatever means, been incorporated, yet notmechanically, into the literal sense of the text. It combines thesurprise ofthe exegetical mode with the ustness, the organicism, ofthe rhetorical.Even The Purple Island has momentsofallegorical expositionthatcan be called dramatic. After he introductory tanzas, the shepherdnarratordescribes the island without telling us what it is, but thelanguage of the poem reveals at once, througha series of paradoxesmeant to stimulatethe reader's imagination and whet his curiosity,that it is more than ust an island:

    An Isle I fainwould sing, n Island fair;A place too seldomeview'd, yetstill n view;Neare as ourselves,yetfarthest rom ur care;Whichwe by leaving finde, yseeking ost;A forraine ome, strange, houghnativecoast;Most obvioustoall, yetmostunknown o most:Coevall with he world nher nativitie:Whichthough t now hathpass'd throughmany ges,And stillretain'd naturall roclivitieTo ruine, ompastwith thousand agesOffoe-menspite,which still this sland tosses;Yet evergrowsmoreprosp'rous yhercrosses;By with'ring pringing resh,nd richbyoftenlosses37

    The succession of paradoxes stimulates the reader's interest,provokes his desire to know what the hidden sense of the islandcould be at the same time it tells himthat t is not merely an island.The reader is encouraged by the language to search throughhis ownexperience for a hidden sense that would satisfythe tantalizingcontradictions of the litera. But as the poem progresses, more andmore paradoxes emerge, thus limiting more and more the reader'sresponse by reducing the number of possible hidden senses whichall the paradoxes can satisfy,guiding him closer and closer to theMarkL. Caldwell 595

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    properone untilcertainty awns on him.Our expectations remanipulatedineby ine, hroughhe anguage f hepoetry,othefinalrevelation.We do not read sequentially,as we do withrhetoricalllegories ikeSpenser'sFeare,forgettingach imageordepositingt namentalimbobeforeweproceed othenext:weareforcedoconnectndcompare very ew inetotheoneprecedingtas more ndmorefeatures fthehiddensensefall ntoplace.The reader s forced ythewriterouse his intelligencendhisimaginationetheispreventedy he imitingower f he mageryfrom unningwaywith hebitbetweenhisteeth, s is possible nthe xegeticalmode.He isdrawnnto hecreation fmeaningnthepoemandfollows tactively, articipatesn itwithout ominatingit.When,nstanzas 0ff.,owardheendof his equence,thepoemexpands oincludea descriptionfthesevendaysofcreation,ndshowsGod placingthePurple sland. . .in thecalmpacifickeas,Andbidnorwaves,nor roublous indesoffendt;38we arestruckythe ppropriatenessf hecentral llegorical rope:the mageofman'sbodyas an islandcanbe extendedbeyond heopeningstring fparadoxes, nd can be made to serve in othersettings,n other llegorical ropeswhichdescribe arious ituationsinwhichman anfindhimself,s hereFletcher escribes he nitialfelicityn whichtheman/islands set,which s replacedby. . .dead seas;whosedark treams,ull ffright,Emptie heir ulphurewaves n endlessnight.39The effectfthisflexibilitynthe mage s tomakethereaderfeeltheresa genuine onnection etween he itera the sland) nd tshiddensense (man). Since all thepossible transformationsf orsubtleties in the litera can be convincinglyconnected withcorrespondingransformationsr ubtletiesn thehidden ense,wearepersuaded hat heconnection etween hem s a discoveryfpreviously iddenreality,ndnot narbitrarytroke ythewriter.In Book I ofThe Faerie Queene,for xample,we are toldthemoment e firstee him hatDespaireis despair;butthisdoesnotprevent penser'sexposition fhis strugglewithRedcrossefromworking n the dramaticmode. Spenser's firstdescriptionofDespaireworks hetorically,mmediatelynd clearly voking heemotion s everyone ommonlynderstandst:Ere longthey ome,where hat amewickedwightHis dwelling as, owina hollow ave,596 Allegory:The Renaissance Mode

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    Farre underneath craggiecliftypight,Darke, dolefull,drearie, ike a greedie graveThat stillfor arrion arcasesdoth crave:On topwhereof ye dwelttheghastlyOwle,Shrieking is balefullnote,which ever draveFarre from hathauntall other hearefull owle;And all about it wandring hostesdid waile and howle.0

    The reader may be trapped by these stanzas into thinking thateverything one can know of hopelessness has been revealed in theallegorical tableau which introduced him. But a surprise is in store:recognizing an inward enemy, as Freud would not admit, is notenough to save us from him. Like us, Rederosse thinks he hasunderstood the real threat of despair, and quite self-confidentlyrefutes the invitations to despondency Despaire issues in stanzas39-42. But then, as Despaire, undespairingly persistent,continueshis assault, Redcrosse's virtue melts, and despair beginsmysteriously to insinuate itself into his heart even while it fails tobeguile his intellect:

    The knightwas muchenmovedwithhis speach,Thatas a swordspoint through is hartdid perse,And in his consciencemade a secretbreach,Well knowing rue ll, thathe did reherseAndto his fresh emembrance id reverseThe ugly vew of his deformed rimes,Thatall hismanlypowresitdid disperse,As he were charmedwith nchaunted imes,Thatoftentimese quakt, nd fainted ftentimes.4'The initial description lulls us into thinking (as in the rhetoricalmode) thatwe have understood Despaire in all his implications. Thedramatic surprise is that n spite ofhis apparent simplicity, Despaireis able to internalize what he represents in Redcrosse's soul: we seethe purely conventional, emblematized threatof the "man ofhell,that cals himselfDespaire" terrifyinglyransformtself into a realdespair in the mind and soul of a "real" man.This is a familiar phenomenon in Renaissance allegory: allSpenser's majorcharactersonly graduallyattain thefullforceoftheireventual meaning. We see fully nwhat sense Guyon is Temperanceonly afterhis last test in Acrasia's bower; he startsout as a man andends as a man who embodies a virtue.The same is trueof Redcrosse,Britomart, resumably of Arthur,n factof all themajor charactersinthe poem. It is the incessant, cumulative transformation fDuessaMark L. Caldwell 597

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    fromneseductivelyminous ormnto notherhatmakesher ntosuchaneffectivellegory or vil; our ccessto herfullmeaningsthemoreeffectiveecause it s slow,plannedanddramatic.Coleridge42emanded hat symbolasopposedto nallegory) e"always tself part fthat, fthewholeofwhich t s representa-tive,"that herebe morethana merely chematic,podeictic, rillustrativeonnection etween itera ndhidden ense.Yet f, orexample,we positthatMobyDick is a "symbol" of"'theunfathom-ablemysteryf ife,"43nwhat ensedothe woreally artakef achother?Moby Dick is, after ll, not a realwhale,butan artificefwords, elected ndmoldedbyMelville nsucha way s tosuggestto hereader 'the nfathomable ysteryf ife."We donot ee a realwhale,do not discover connection etween thatwhale and themysteryf eal ife.Whatwe do discovers Melvilleforginglink orthereader etween wofictivereations,hewhale and thefictionaluniverse t lives in.Whatreallyhappens n thesymbolicmode,think,swhathappens nthedramaticmodeofwritingllegory. hewriterxtractsromr nfusesnto he iteranew,unexpected ealmsofmeaningwhichmayfirsturprise ytheir trangeness,utwhichultimatelyatisfyytheir ightness.he dead fiction as been en-dowedwith potentialor pistemological otion, sensethat tcantransformtself, urprisinglyet ustly,nto a newkind ofbeing.Allegorys,after ll, a kindofnarrative: s we read it we wanttoknowwhathappensnext,ust s we do nreading he implesttory.In short,tmaybe valuabletoviewtheRenaissanceunderstand-ingofallegoryneither s the smooth ontinuum fconsistentfoverlapping odesposited yC. S. Lewis inTheAllegoryfLove,44noras a nonce device ofrhetoriconstantly etdiscontinuouslyapplied. t ratherperatesnthreemajormodes:therhetorical,heexegetical,nd a neverdefined utrichgray reabetween hetwo,thedramatic.Fordham University

    FOOTNOTES1J.C. Smith,ed., Spenser's Faerie Queene (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1912),3.12.12. All extractsfromSpenser in this essay are taken fromSmith's edition.2 Francesco Colonna, Hypnerotomachia, The StrifeofLove in a Dreame, tr.R. D.

    (London, 1592), fols. 17v-18r. he English translation,withits crude illustrations, scurrently vailable in at least two facsimile editions. Curiously, Aldus's beautiful,important nd influential 1499 edition is not so easily found,thoughStephen Orgelis preparinga facsimile to be published shortly.598 Allegory: The Renaissance Mode

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    3Michael Murrin,The Veil ofAllegory Chicago: Univ. ofChicago Press, 1969), pp.18 ff. n his recent article "Allegory as Interpretation"(NLH, 3 [1972], 301-17),Morton Bloomfield points out that there can be in fact no absolute distinctionbetween litera and hidden sense. The mere act of reading,after ll, even on themostsuperficial evel, is an act of nterpretation, disclosure ofhidden sense, which addssomethingof the reader's understanding to the bald arrangementofwords on thepage. But Renaissance writers agreed almost universally that there was a realdifferencebetween litera and hidden sense, and a distinction so widely held intheorycould nothelp but have some effecton the practice ofwritingallegory.4Rosemond Tuve, Allegorical Imagery (Princeton: PrincetonUniv. Press, 1966),pp. 219-333.5 Angus Fletcher, Allegory: Theory of a Symbolic Mode (Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniv. Press, 1964).

    6 Murrin's Veil ofAllegory and Rosemond Tuve's Allegorical Imagery seem tometo be the most searching studies in this vein. Alastair Fowler's Spenser and theNumbers ofTime (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964), is a perhaps extremeexample of the kind of criticismwhich de-emphasizes the litera in hotpursuitoftheapparentlyunconnected hidden sense; A. C. Hamilton's Structureof Allegory n theFaerie Queene (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), by contrastdeliberately avoids thehidden sense in an effort o do justice to the litera: see especially pp. 12 ff.7 Cf. Graham Hough's discussion in A Preface to The Faerie Queene (London:Duckworth, 1962), pp. 100-37, or C. S. Lewis's in The Allegory of Love (Oxford:OxfordUniv. Press, 1936), pp. 333-37.

    8 Murrin,especially the useful summaryon pp. 168 ff.9The earliest occurrence of the term"allegoria" is actually in Philodemus: seeR. M. Grant,The Letterand the Spirit (New York:Macmillan, 1957), p. 121. But theearliestdefinition tillcurrent n and having influence on the Renaissance is theonein theAd Herennium (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1954), IV.xxxiv.46.10Paul J.Alpers, The Poetryof The Faerie Queene (Princeton: PrincetonUniv.Press, 1967). While there is much in thepoem that ends itself oAlpers's method,thinkthere is as much thatdemands to be approached in otherways: see below.11This is a common note in examinations of the rhetoricaldefinitionofallegory;see, forexample, Hough, pp. 123-25.12 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, ed. H. E. Butler (Cambridge: Loeb ClassicalLibrary,1920), VIII.vi.50-53: "When ... allegory is too obscure, we call it a riddle.Such riddles are, in my opinion, tobe regarded as blemishes, in view of the fact hatlucidity is a virtue."13 Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique (London, 1560), fols. 98v-99r.Theclarity of the rhetorical mode in allegory is, however, not always seen by

    Renaissance commentators s a simple clarity:the word "dark" is again and againapplied in definitionsof the term. t has oftenbeen assumed, with some justice froma purely lexical point of view that t means "obscure." Puttenhamwould appear tosupportsuch an interpretationn his definitionofallegory as "dissimulation undercovert and darke intendments" (Arteof English Poesie [London, 1589] p. 128), aswould Wilson (fol.99r), and Peacham (The Garden ofEloquence [London, 1593], p.27). Yet we find the termapplied repeatedly to allegorical fictionswhose meaningscould not be plainer, even to a naive reader. The implication is thatallegory in therhetoricalsense, even where its meaning is self-evident,bears about it an aura ofobscurity,darkness,mystery, oubtfulness.14 Puttenham, p. 155.1' OED.16Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, Psychomachia, ed. & tr. Sr. M. Clement Eagan(Washington,D.C.: Catholic Univ. Press, 1965), 1.11.21-27.17 Cf.Murrin,pp. 141-46.Murrin approaches thepassage in a somewhat differentway.MarkL. Caldwell 599

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    18 G. R. Owst's Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge:Cambridge Univ. Press, 1933), pp. 56-109, and Beryl Smalley's The Study of theBible in theMiddle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952) have thoroughly nvestigated hehistory nd established the importanceof the method.19See, for xample, MasterRypon ofDurham's sermonon the Loaves and Fishes,excerpted n Owst, pp. 58 f.A discussion of the epistemological principlesbehindthis manner of interpretationmay be found in Michel Foucault's The Order ofThings (New York: Pantheon, 1970), pp. 34-50. Frye's idea that"we have actualallegorywhen a poet explicitly ndicates the relationshipof his images to examplesand precepts,and so triesto indicate how a commentary n him should proceed"(Anatomyof Criticism, [PrincetonUniv. Press, 1957], p. 90), seems to me not toapply to most Renaissance allegory n the exegetical mode.

    20 See, for example, Dorothy Bethurum's Critical Approaches to MedievalLiterature New York:Columbia UniversityPress, 1960).21 Harington,A BriefApologyfor Poetry, nElizabethan Critical Essays, ed. G. G.Smith Oxford:OxfordUniv. Press, 1904), vol. II, pp. 201-02.22 Thomas Roche gives an exactly opposite interpretationf thispassage in The

    KindlyFlame (Princeton:PrincetonUniv. Press, 1964), pp. 5-10.23 Harington,pp. 202-03.24 Ibid.,p. 203.25 Compare also Sandys's interpretationf the Alpheus and ArethusaLegend inhis translation f the Metamorphoses (ed. K. Hulley and S. T. Vandersall [Lincoln:Univ. ofNebraska Press, 1970], pp. 261-62), orNatalis Comes's interpretationfthesame fable (to which, t seems to me, Sandys's gloss owes something), n Book VIII,chapterxxi ofthe Mythologiae (Venice, 1584), p. 603.26Hough, p. 118.27 Ariosto,Orlando Furioso, tr.JohnHarington London, 1581), p. 63.28 Ibid., p. 63.29 See, forexample, the description ofthe nature of the dog in Topsell's Historie ofFoure-footedBeastes (London, 1607), p. 139.30 Natalis Comes offers valuable Renaissance definition fboth the usefulness ofand therationalefor llegorical interpretationf fables in Book I, chapter i and iii,pp. 3-4,of theMythologiae (Venice, 1584).31 Letter to Ralegh, in Poetical Works, ed. J. C. Smith and E. De Selincourt(Oxford:OxfordUniv. Press, 1912), p. 407.32 Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island, 2.22, inWorks, d. F. S. Boas (Cambridge:Cambridge Univ. Press, 1909), vol. II, pp. 30-31. All further itations fromThePurple Island are from his edition.33 GrahamHough, "FirstCommentary n The Faerie Queene," (TLS, 9 April1964,p. 294).34 Harington, . 406.35Bacon, The Wisedome of theAncients, tr. Sir ArthurGorges (London, 1619),preface.36Faerie Queene 2.7.3.37 Purple Island, 1.34-35.38 Ibid., 1.45.39 bid., 1.54.40 Faerie Queene, 1.9.33.41 Ibid., 1.9.48.42 Coleridge, Miscellaneous Criticism, ed. T. M. Raysor (Cambridge: HarvardUniv. Press, 1936), p. 99.43 Melville, Moby Dick, ed. L. S. Mansfield and H. P. Vincent (New York:HendricksHouse, 1962), p. 3.44 C. S. Lewis, op. cit., pp. 333-37.

    600 Allegory:The RenaissanceMode