We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
The Mummers' Play St. George and the Fiery Dragon and Book I of Spenser's Faerie Queene.
- Authors
Vaught, Jennifer C.
- Abstract
This essay examines Book I of Spenser's Faerie Queene in relation to its rich, English and Irish festive and performative context. In "A Letter to the Authors" addressed to Sir Walter Raleigh, which was part of the prefatory material to his epic, Spenser envisions including twelve books that correspond to the "Faery Queene" keeping her "Annual feaste xii. dayes." This phrase most likely refers to Queen Elizabeth's annual feast of the Twelve Days of Christmas. The Mummers' Play St. George and the Fiery Dragon was traditionally performed during the Christmas holiday season. In one version of this popular, comic play St. George engages in a slap-stick battle with a dragon that roars, demands meat, and performs a summersault. Throughout Book I of The Faerie Queene featuring Redcrosse who develops into the legendary St. George, Spenser appropriates elements from English Mummers' plays about St. George, his Turkish opponent, and the Dragon in keeping with his larger Protestant agenda. His doing so contributes to the comedic dimension of Redcrosse's battle with the dragon toward the end of Book I. Spenser's surprising addition of comedy to this battle of biblical proportions further links Redcrosse with popular versions of legendary St. George well-known in comic, holiday performances and thereby distances his Protestant figure from the more serious Catholic Saint by this name.
- Subjects
ESSAYS; FAERIE Queene, The (Poem : Spenser); MUMMING; MUMMING plays; CHRISTMAS plays; ENGLISH folk drama; CHRISTMAS pageants; PAGEANTS in literature
- Publication
Latch: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Artifacts in Theory, Culture or History, 2010, Vol 3, p85
- ISSN
1947-9441
- Publication type
Essay