| God's Only Daughter: Spenser's Una as the Invisible Church Contributor(s): Walls, Kathryn (Author) |
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ISBN: 0719090377 ISBN-13: 9780719090370 Publisher: Manchester University Press OUR PRICE: $123.50 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: November 2013 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Renaissance - Religion | Christianity - Literature & The Arts - Poetry | European - English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh |
| Dewey: 821.3 |
| Series: Manchester Spenser |
| Physical Information: 0.9" H x 5.7" W x 8.6" (0.95 lbs) 256 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In this study, Kathryn Walls challenges the standard identification of Una with the post-Reformation English Church, arguing that she is, rather, Augustine's City of God - the invisible Church, whose membership is known only to God. Una's 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 Spenser's allegory, Walls offers fresh interpretations of Abessa (as Synagoga), of the fauns and satyrs (the Gentiles), and of Una's dwarf (adiaphoric forms of worship). She also reinterprets Spenser's marriage metaphor, clarifying the significance of Red Cross as Una's spouse in the final canto. |