{"id":113,"date":"2024-04-11T13:45:50","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T17:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/?p=113"},"modified":"2024-04-11T13:45:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T17:45:50","slug":"book-iv-canto-vii-stanzas-37-47-april-8-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/2024\/04\/11\/book-iv-canto-vii-stanzas-37-47-april-8-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Book IV, canto vii, stanzas 37-47 (April 8, 2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Exit Belpheobe\u2014Timias lays down his arms, \u201cwearing out his youthly years\u201d (41). Whenever knights retreat into the woods they tend to become either delirious (Orlando) or ascetic (Yvain); Timias turns to \u201cwillful penury\u201d (41). The poem describes <\/span><span class=\"s1\">Timias&#8217;s retreat lyrically, and it is as if time flows differently in isolation. After he quits questing, Timias becomes self-absorbed, physically and mentally, hiding his face behind unkempt hair. We noted similarities between Timias and other allegorical figures\u2014the overgrown Lust and the single-minded Care. What had been perversions of the poem\u2019s project of coordination have, ever since the termination of the tournament, become the norm. The narrative has split into several strands, and characters pursue idiosyncrasy. Timias remains unmoved even by Arthur&#8217;s efforts &#8220;to change his wonted tenor&#8221; and instead <\/span><span class=\"s1\">lives out a life of devotional repetition, the arrhythmia of a broken heart (46-47).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>We should say that Arthur does not recognize his squire, and <span class=\"s1\">Timias treats him ambiguously, \u201cshewing joyous semblance for his sake\u201d (44). Does Timias dissemble joy, or does he find joy in semblance, in withholding himself from Arthur? A similar ambiguity attends Timias\u2019s inscription of \u201cBELPHEBE\u201d (some editions space out the letters), which appears autotelic, yet \u201che wexed glad, \/ When he it heard\u201d read (46). Not only then does Timias refuse to rejoin the narrative, but his self-absorption appears theatrical. Does this episode restage the paragone of epic and theater from Canto 3? What does that <\/span><span class=\"s1\">have to do with friendship? <\/span><span class=\"s1\">All of us, I hope, have a<\/span><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0friend who hates drama. [JY]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exit Belpheobe\u2014Timias lays down his arms, \u201cwearing out his youthly years\u201d (41). Whenever knights retreat into the woods they tend to become either delirious (Orlando) or ascetic (Yvain); Timias turns to \u201cwillful penury\u201d (41). The poem describes Timias&#8217;s retreat lyrically, and it is as if time flows differently in isolation. After he quits questing, Timias&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":378,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/378"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}