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

by Kathryn Walls

Part of the The Manchester Spenser series

Paperback / softback

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Description

In this study, Kathryn Walls challenges the standard identification of Una with the post-Reformation English Church, arguing that she is, rather, Augustineâ€™s City of God â€“ the invisible Church, whose membership is known only to God.

Unaâ€™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 Spenserâ€™s allegory, Walls offers fresh interpretations of Abessa (as Synagoga), of the fauns and satyrs (the Gentiles), and of Unaâ€™s dwarf (adiaphoric forms of worship).

She also reinterprets Spenserâ€™s marriage metaphor, clarifying the significance of Red Cross as Unaâ€™s spouse in the final canto. -- .