Britomartis - Spenser's "Britomart"

Spenser's "Britomart"

Britomart figures in Edmund Spenser's knightly epic The Faerie Queene, where she is an allegorical figure of the virgin Knight of Chastity, representing English virtue—in particular, English military power—through a folk etymology that associated Brit-, as in Briton, with Martis, here thought of as "of Mars", the Roman war god. In Spenser's allegory, Britomart connotes the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I of England.

In his retelling of the King Arthur legends, Arthur Rex, author Thomas Berger suggests that Queen Guinevere may have become a powerful female knight known as Britomart after the death of the King.

Read more about this topic:  Britomartis

Famous quotes containing the word spenser:

    Joy may you have and gentle hearts content
    Of your loves couplement:
    And let faire Venus, that is Queene of love,
    With her heart-quelling Sonne upon you smile,
    —Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)