It seems in this passage that Spenser would agree with Aristotle
that the theory of forms is not contingent, and is not causation.
Instead, Spenser posits Chaos as the cause of things coming to
be, the source of substance and that which is eternal. He seems
to toy with both of the ideas presented by Plato and Aristotle,
and at the same time slips in his own metaphysical philosophy
which originates with chaos. I did not expect to find a philosophical
Spenser in this passage because it is so heavily laden with the
thoughts and theories of others; his point of view comes across
very subtle in the mish mash of so many Platonic and neo-Platonic
references.
In the passage, Spenser throws around the word form so often
that it is hard to keep up with which definition he is using at
the time, which is precisely why scholars reading this piece should
know the way in which the words has been used and defined over
time. Elizabeth Fowler, a professor at Yale, says it best: “Part
of our job as workers in a discipline that prizes historical consciousness
is to understand that context in which the Faerie Queene understands
itself.” Her words carry the weight of why it is important
to know the ancient texts and ideas- because we should strive
to understand the poem in its own context, rather than our own,
for that is where the meaning lies.
Sources
1) Plato. The Collected Dialogues. Princeton,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987.
2) Pojman, Louis P. Classics of Philosophy.
(My copy is missing its first few pages; more information can
not be provided.)
3) Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene.
Great Britain: Pearson Education, 2001.