Abstract
As Spenser and Milton understood so well, the reformation forced a significant revaluation of the traditional ideas and images of heroism. Human strength must be a problematic virtue in a world shaped by and charged with the will of God, but even more so when faith rather than deeds is understood as the source of justification. The Pelagian thrust of heroic action was countered by St Paul’s insistence that
by grace are ye saued through faith, and that not of your selues: it is the gifte of God, Not of workes, lest any man shulde boaste him self.
(Ephesians 2:8–9)
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Notes
Maurice Evans, Spenser’s Anatomy of Heroism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) p. 29.
See also Paul J. Alpers, The Poetry of The Faerie Queene (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967) pp. 334–69.
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© 1982 David Scott Kastan
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Kastan, D.S. (1982). ‘The King is a Good King, but it must be as it may’: History, Heroism, and Henry V. In: Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06145-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06145-7_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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