Britomartis and the Dawn Treader: the virtue of Chastity

 

Book III of the Faerie Queene and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader seemed at first read to have little or nothing to do with one another, except that both begin in a similar way and both have a framing story and both reference romantic love and both are episodic in structure and...well, maybe they have more in common than my first glance saw.
Again, let me restate that this a blog series is me attempting to work out whether there is any merit to my theory that Lewis wrote his Chronicles with the virtues (and their order) of The Faerie Queene (TFQ henceforth) in mind. I am not a professional literary critic; I have no degree of any kind; I do not study this kind of literature as a profession. I am firmly in the amateur camp. But as an amateur( from Latin amatorem (nominative amator) "lover, friend," agent noun from amatus, past participle of amare "to love" - etymonline.com) ,  I love the stories and want to honor them as what they are. I do not want to force my theory on them like some literary stepsister. In my reading and research for this post, I came upon this quote by Lewis in Walter Hooper's Past Watchful Dragons which was a good reminder for me and a good clarifier for this post:

"The text before us, however it came into existence, must be allowed to work on us in its own way, and must be judged on its own merits...And while we are reading or criticizing we must be on our guard against a certain elliptical modes of expression which may be legitimate for some purpose but is deadly for us. We must not say that the Grail 'is' a Celtic cauldron of plenty, or that Malory's Gawain 'is' a solar deity, or that the land of Gome in Chrestien's Lancelot 'is' the world of the dead. Within a given story any object, person, or place is neither more nor less nor other than what that story effectively shows it to be. The ingredients of one story cannot 'be' anything in another story, for they are not in it at all.     (Emphasis Walter Hooper's) "

I am not trying to make out that Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia are Spenser lite, or warmed over, but rather explore the idea that these books of Spenser's were so beloved by Lewis and so well known (in one book he says, "The Faerie Queene is perhaps the most difficult poem in English. Quite how difficult, I am only now beginning to realize after forty years of reading it.") that these images and the virtues the books portray became a part of the Chronicles naturally. I am aware that Lewis wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with no grand theme in mind, but as Walter Hooper points out, after finishing the first volume, he began shortly after to compose what would eventually become the Magician's Nephew, and even intended a story like VDT to be the sequel to the LWW (Past Watchful Dragons, chapter 5, p. 54). Instead, Prince Caspian inserted itself and VDT became what it is today. So whether he meant to or not, Lewis's mind, full of the imagery of fairy tales and epics (like TFQ), crafted an epic of his own, and it is not surprising that elements of these old, beloved stories are so easy to find in the Narnian tales.

As I read Book III of TFQ, I noticed right away that the obvious cross overs and correlations between the first two books of Spenser and Lewis were gone. There were so many obvious events and structural elements that Lewis used and which seemed to be lifted without apology from Spenser. But here in these two books, the similarities rise higher and become more foundational and ethereal. I put forward that VDT and Britomart share a similar structure, a similar beginning point, several similar plot points, and that they also both flesh out the virtue of Chastity.

The Structure of the Stories

Almost everything I've read about VDT says that it was based on the Irish immram, which as defined by William Flint Thrall (here) "is a sea-voyage tale in which a hero, accompanied by a few companions, wanders about from island to island, meets Otherworld wonders everywhere, and finally returns to his native land." Sounds very much like the structure of the Dawn Treader. [ Lewis himself makes reference to the Odyssey and the voyage of St. Brendan as inspirations for his first ideas of a ship story in an interesting note in one of his journals (Past Watchful Dragons, ch. 5, p. 54). ] The immrama typically have a framing story justifying the voyage undertaken by the hero. Barbara Hillers in her paper 'Voyages between Heaven and Hell; Navigating the Early Irish Immram Tales' says, "The three stories said to form the core of the immram genre...all open with a crime that has been perpetrated." (quote from here) In the Voyage of St. Brendan, a crime has not been perpetrated, but the driving framing story here is a desire for The Promised Land and as desire to grow closer to God over all. We see this in VDT as well. The penitential story and main purpose for almost the entire crew is to find the seven lords who would perhaps have been loyal to Caspian and his legitimate claim to the Narnian crown and who were sent to sea by Caspian's usurping uncle, never to be heard from again. The larger framing story is the prophecy spoken over Reepicheep at his birth, fortelling his destiny to come to "the utter East" and perhaps find Aslan's country. Not everyone on board desires to go this far into the Unknown, but it is this larger framing story that keeps Caspian and his crew from turning back at the darkest points of the story.

There is a larger framing story in The Legend of Chastity, too, and one that begins similarly to the adventure of the Pevensies and their cousin. Britomart is left alone in her father's house and wanders into his "closet" and spies his magic mirror. A few stanzas earlier we are told the mirror is a "glassy globe" that was given by Merlin to Britomart's father, King Ryence "for his guard, That never foes his kingdom might invade, but he it knew at home before he hear Tydings therof." So this crystal ball or magic mirror was given for the defense of the King's land and ends up being the means by which Artegall invades Britomart's heart. She desires to see who it is that she will love, and the vision of "a comely knight...lookt foorth." Afterwards she finds out from Merlin that she is destined to marry the knight in the mirror and that great kings and queens with be their descendents (similar to the star lady that Caspian marries at the very end of VDT). She determines to find him and the search for him is what sets Britomart on her quest. We never see Artegall again in Book III or even hear of him after Canto II, and the framing quest of Britomart is only referred to occasionally.

The Pevensies and their cousin Eustance begin their journey in a similar fashion, drawn through the painting of a Narnian ship that was a gift to their Aunt and hung in a back bedroom.  

Both stories are episodic in nature rather than a consistent, unbroken narrative, although the framing story in each gives a strong spine. This digression in stories was a favorite feature of medieval storytellers, and especially in the immrams. As Hillers writes, "Clearly one impetus behind the immrams is the medieval authors' interest in the marvels encountered on the magic islands. While modern readers may not share this predilection, we must grant the author permission to indulge his fancy, especially as it was clearly shared by his contemporaries." The further description of "the formulaic and repetitive series of incidents" and "the characteristically episodic, loose structure of the voyage tales, their tendency to string on island after island," could have been put toward Book III of TFQ just as well as a general description of a voyage tale.

In addition to the episodic and loose structure of the stories, both VDT and Bk III of TFQ have multiple main characters. Four to five, depending on how rigid you want to be and which storyline you are following. In VDT we have Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, Caspian, and Reepicheep, whose story is the greater framing story, but who never veers from Caspian's storyline until the very end when he and Caspian part ways. We also have the stories of the seven lords and the mystery of what happened to them. In TFQ Bk III we have Britomart, Florimell, Amoret, Arthur, and Timias. Possibly Belphoebe as well. I think you could actually pare both character lists down to core sets of four: Britomart, Florimell, Arthur, and Timias; Caspian, Eustace, Lucy, and Reepicheep.

The Joining Theme: Chastity/Chastening

Both Bk III of TFQ and VDT show chastity in action, though not, in Lewis's book, as sexual purity, since chastity according to him is not so narrow. Lewis, in discussing books three and four of the Faerie Queene, says in The Allegory of Love, "The subjects of these two books are respectively Chastity and Friendship, but we are justified in treating them as a single book on the subject of love. Chasity, in the person of Britomart, turns out to mean not virginity but virtuous love; and friends are found to be merely 'another sort of lovers' in the temple of Venus. The Proem to the legend of Friendship deals entirely with 'lovers deare debate', and its story is equally concerned with friendship, reconciliation and marriage."

We see all three elements of "friendship, reconciliation and marriage" in VDT as well. Lucy, Edmund, Caspian, and Reepicheep are all dear friends, and Eustance, who begins the journey as a "record stinker," ends up becoming a real friend to each. 

Chastity and chastening both have the idea of correction with the view to purity, and almost as soon as we enter the story of Britomart, we see this happening. Britomart, after knocking Guyon off his horse (thus giving him the opportunity to practice his Temperance) goes knocking down six knights of the lady Malacasta who had ganged up on one lone knight. She knocks down Malacasta, the floozy lady of the castle Joyous. She knocks down Marinell, the knight of the sea who has chosen the riches of the strond to the love of woman - and her correction nearly proves fatal to him. She eventually rescues Amoret from Busirane and leaves him chastened - "deepe engrieved." We see the chastening of fearful Florimell as her fear drives her into greater and greater dangers and away from Arthur who seeks to help her. Character after character is chastised, with either a view to there improvement in purity or just stopping their evil before they do real harm. It is interesting that early on in the story, Britomart herself is wounded by one of the six knights of Malacasta and so is the chastened chastener.
The characters of VDT endure chastening as well, each of them having a turn, with Eustace being the clearest and most dramatic. Caspian in some ways imitates Britomart when we see him chastening his slovenly Governor Gumpas and setting the first of his Lone Islands to rights.

Reepicheep seems in some ways to be to the VDT what St. Brendan is to the group of monks he is leading. Reepicheep seems almost above reproach in this story, and is often the guiding voice of the voyage. He needs no chastisement because he is already pure of heart. His purpose is single. He must only wait. He is also similar to Britomart in his single desire for the seemingly unattainable. I wonder if Britomart's love for Artegall is an example in Spenser of what Lewis later calls the numinous, that sweet and painful longing for something beyond oneself and greater than the natural world. I have not thought this through, though. This quality is present in the imram, too, with several of the oldest immrams beginning with and appearance of aFaerie lady to the hero and his resulting desire to leave all to find her in the Other World.

Interesting Perhapses, Theories, and Quotes

These don't necessarily have anything to do with a connection between VDT and TFQ, but are things that I found interesting as I read about the immram genre and the Faerie Queene.

• I read in several different places the idea of the 'dry land' imram - which in my mind translated to a journey story. Snark aside, perhaps the dry land imram would be similarly episodic and focused as much on the voyage as it is the destination, as opposed to a story with a strong continuing narrative. There was also a theory (outlined and refuted in this paper, and mentioned in this paper ) that the immram tradition drew from not only the Odyssey but the Aeneid as well. It would be interesting if it were so.
• Northrop Frye in Fables of Identity writes, "...of all private virtues, holiness is the most dependent on grace and revelation, hence the imagery of Book I is Biblical and apocalyptic, and introduces the theological virtues. Temperance, in contrast s a virtue shared by the enlightened heathen, a prerequisite and somewhat pedestrian  virtue..., hence the imagery of Book II is classical with much drawn from the Odyssey and from Platonic and Aristotelian ethics. Chastity, a virtue described by Spenser as 'farre above the rest,' seems to combine something of both...We note that in Spenser...the supreme private virtue appears to be chastity rather than charity. Charity is the sense of Christian love, does not fit the scheme of The Faerie Queen; for Spenser it would primarily mean, not man's love for God, but God's love for man....Hence, though Book I is the only book that deals explicitly with Christian imagery, it does not follow that holiness is the supreme virtue. Spenser is not dealing with what God gives to man, but with what man does with his gifts, and Redcrosse's grip on holiness is humanly uncertain."