God's Only Daughter: Spenser's Una as the Invisible Church

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

The first full-length study to be devoted to Una, the beleaguered but ultimately triumphant heroine of Book One of The Faerie Queene

In this study, Kathryn Walls challenges the standard identification of Una with the post-Reformation English Church, arguing that she is, rather, Augustines City of God the invisible Church, whose membership is known only to God. Unas story (its Tudor resonances notwithstanding) therefore embraces that of the Synagogue before the Incarnation as well as that of the Church in the time of Christ and thereafter. It also allegorises the redemptive process that sustains the true Church. Una is fallible in canto I. Subsequently, however, she comes to embody divine perfection. Her transformation depends upon the intervention of the lion as Christ. Convinced of the consistency and coherence of Spensers allegory, Walls offers fresh interpretations of Abessa (as Synagoga), of the fauns and satyrs (the Gentiles), and of Unas dwarf (adiaphoric forms of worship). She also reinterprets Spensers marriage metaphor, clarifying the significance of Red Cross as Unas spouse in the final canto.

Reviews

[A] model of a sustained, close, critical reading of a single book. . . ..Its strengths lie precisely in the painstaking and patient unpacking of book 1 through an immensely learned discussion of sixteenth-century theology and in particular the invisible church as conceived in Calvinism
Renaissance Quarterly, Winter 2014

Wallss sophisticated exploration of the many cultural and literary infratexts should be required reading for Spenser scholars or graduate students pursuing an interest in this remarkable and important early modern poet. . . . evinces a refreshing independence of inquiry that is unafraid to follow the evidence wherever it leads
Cahiers Elizabethains, 2014

[P]ersuasively demonstrates that reading Una alongside contemporary Protestant thought about the invisible church greatly enriches her role in the poem. Wallss tightly-focused book establishes that Unas travails deserve as much careful attention as those of the knight who seeks her
Spenser Review 44.3.64, Jan 2015

groundbreaking . . . Walls's book is not only crucial to all Spenserians, but to all early modern academics and students. . . . an unflinching reflection [on criticism to date]. . . . an indispensable companion to The Faerie Queene
Parergon 32: 1, 2015

Author Bio

Kathryn Walls is Professor of English at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand