The Significance of Florimell in The Faerie Queene

Book III centers around the theme of Chastity, an important theme in Elizabethan Literature. It makes visible the dialectic between Queen Elizabeth’s conceptualization of chastity as virginal, which in the 16th Century meant self-possessed, powerful, and magical—and Spenser’s assertion of the more predominant views of women as vulnerable, threatened, and thus logically protected and possessed by men. Spenser appropriates Elizabeth’s iconography of virginal chastity to channel that chastity and the penalties that attack its power, ultimately altering its meaning altogether. The poet plays with, celebrates, and satirizes chastity.

In the 1570s, this work of Spenser’s had even been used politically by poets to dissuade the Queen from marrying a French Catholic called the Duke of Anjou. By the time The Faerie Queene was written, Elizabeth was well into her fifties. She was still praised as being a chaste Queen, but by this point, it was used more as flattery than as a real way of guiding her actions. The portrayal of women’s physique and sexuality as dangerous and artful in this epic poem forces the female reader into gender awareness and imposes a male perspective on her. It is first and foremost the woman’s outward appearance that the male characters read or, in Florimell’s case, ‘misread’.

The text presents Gloriana and Belphoebe as chaste muses, but the importance shown by Arthur in his pursuit of Florimell points to her character as worth interpreting. From her representation in Canto I, the reader can assume that Florimell’s representation is a virtuous one. She is not only “goodly” but has a radiating beauty, and the text never presents true beauty as immortal or lacking in virtue. When Prince Arthur’s squire, Timias, approaches Florimell to assuage her fear of being pursued, she simply flees, neglecting reason:

“With no less haste, and eke with no lesse dreed/ that fearefull Ladie fled from him, that ment/ To her no evill thought… Carried her forward with her first intent.” (Spenser III.iv.49-50)

Her incapability of trusting anyone as she runs from a witch, a lecherous fisherman, and Proteus, the sea god who locks her up when she rebuffs his advances, seems to reflect a form of chastity that is more helpless and submissive than the strong, independent chastity exemplified by Britomart. According to Graham Hough, she is an antithesis of Britomart, noting that Florimell is beauty and desirability and nothing else. She has no other qualities besides purity and constancy, being timorous and passive, with flight being her only activity. Moreover, Florimell’s timidity and Arthur not being able to catch her signifies that Arthur must wait until his eventual unification with the Faerie Queene to achieve the glory that she symbolizes. This allegory is confirmed by the lines:

“Lives none this day, that may with her compare/ In stedfast chastity and virtue rare.” (Spenser III.V.8)

Florimell resembles Marinell, whose chaste behavior is also a result of fearful self-preservation. Spenser’s explicit admonition to all women to prefer a dungeon to losing their chastity or changing whom they love recalls the admonitions he made about Redcrosse in Book I. Consistency in love remains a major theme for Spenser. The Faerie Queene is rife with mistaken identities and doubles. The false Florimell is another example of magic disguising and being without virtue as something beautiful and worthy. The false Florimell has no soul and was created by a witch, which adds another thread in Spenser’s continued distrust of outward appearances. This makes her a character all the more appreciable and respectable.

Furthermore, each of the rooms in Busirane’s Castle displays weaknesses of the mind: lust, violence, and other negative emotions. The first two rooms contained the two largest threats to chastity, as exemplified in the story of poor Florimell.

In the essay, Political Allegory of the Florimell-Marinell Story, Isabel E. Rathborne presents an interesting observation, identifying Florimell with Ireland and Marinell with the sea power, first of Spain and later (after he was overthrown by Britomart) of Britain. The witch and her son, with “plots of gain possessions” of Ireland, and the witch’s beast with rebellion, symbolically align with the political context of the time. The other view posits that Florimell has been born and brought up with ‘civility’, which was among the many blessings that the English bestow upon the ‘savage nations.’ Therefore, it could be interpreted as learning from that ‘civility’ which is native to England and exiled in Ireland.

Spenser’s poem not only revives the classical epic, which in its purest form had not been used since Virgil, but it emphasizes the ideals of reality, friendship, and virtue—hallmarks of the Humanistic Movement. Before the Reformation, humanism embraced Catholicism as a representative ideal, as was the case with Sir Thomas More. But after the Reformation, Protestantism became the ideal for Humanists in England, such as Spenser.

Bibliography

• Blissett, William. “Florimell and Marinell.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 5, no. 1, Rice University, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965, pp. 87–104.
• Rathborne, Isabel E. “The Political Allegory of the Florimell-Marinell Story.” ELH, vol. 12, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945, pp. 279–89.
• Cavanagh, Sheila T. “Nightmares of Desire: Evil Women in The Faerie Queene.” Studies in Philology, vol. 91, no. 3, University of North Carolina Press, 1994, pp. 313–38.
• Villeponteaux, Mary. “Displacing Feminine Authority in The Faerie Queene.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 35, no. 1, Rice University, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, pp. 53–67.