Module: 2

Title: Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Book I

Structure

1. Relevance of the Unit

2. Objectives of the Unit
3. Introduction
3.1 Sir Edmund Spenser’s Life and Times
3.2 Note on the Spenserian Stanza
4. Summary
5. Issues
5.1 Portrayal of Personifications in The Faerie Queene, Book I
5.2 Elements of Allegory in The Faerie Queene, Book I
5.3 Elements of the Epic in The Faerie Queene, Book I
5.4 Elements of the Chivalric Romance in The Faerie Queene, Book I
6. Glossary
7. Self Assessment Questions
8. Bibliography

1. Relevance of the Unit:

The Faerie Queene is both a canonical poem and a classic work. It is enormously long: longer
than Jerusalemme Liberata and Paradise Lost put together. It is difficult to conceive of any part
of Elizabethan culture and literature to which it is not relevant. Yet it is timeless in that it
addresses the most fundamental and enduring questions that continue to haunt people today,
namely, what are the moral foundations of a society, what do individuals contribute towards
social reconstruction, how do the genders and classes interact in society, what is the meaning and
function of suffering in the human condition, what are the objectives of human existence, and
where do the individual‘s spiritual quest and a nation‘s self-construction intersect.
2. Objectives of the Unit:

The following suggested module for reading The Faerie Queene, Book I, encourages and aids
thorough critical reading of the text from a sound and authoritative edition. It does not propose to
substitute the text itself and to that end only provides material such as will help the reader
unfamiliar with Spenserian language, place the text in its socio-political and historical
framework and relate it to the author‘s course of personal, professional and ideological
development.

3. Introduction:
3.1 Sir Edmund Spenser’s Life and Times

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 Edmund Spenser (c.1552-1599) was born in London to a family of cloth merchants. Sir Walter
Ralegh, the controversial statesman, adventurer and writer who would be so instrumental in the
publication of The Faerie Queene was also born in 1552, while Sir Philip Sidney, to whom
Spenser dedicated The Shepheardes Calendar, was born in 1554. At the Merchant Taylor‘s
School, Spenser received an excellent humanist education in classical scholarship and languages
In February 1569 Spenser published anonymously six ‗Epigrams‘, translated from Petrarch‘s
Rime 323, eleven ‗Sonets‘ translated from du Bellay‘s Songe, and four ‗Sonets‘, translated from
Dutch Calvinist refugee Jan van der Noot‘s poems in French for Noot‘s anti-Catholic
compilation A Theatre wherein be represented as wel the miseries and calamities that follow the
voluptuous Worldlings, As also the great ioyes and pleasures which the faithfull do enjoy. This
volume came out simultaneously in Dutch, French and English.
Later that year Spenser matriculated as a sizar at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. The most important
influence on Spenser during this period, though, was undoubtedly his intimate friendship with
Gabriel Harvey. Harvey should be credited with having introduced Spenser to a number of
important connections and potential patrons, including Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. After
taking his B.A. (1573) and M.A. (1576), Spenser left Cambridge for Kent, where he acted as
secretary for John Young, recently created Bishop of Rochester. It was there that the poet
probably composed The Shepheardes Calender, which seems to represent the Kentish landscape.
Spenser would move to London on Harvey‘s advice, to seek advancement at court, after
graduating with a Master‘s Degree and an unhappy love affair with a certain ―Rosalind‖.
By spring 1579, at any rate, Spenser had been accepted into the employment of the Earl of
Leicester, and was living in Leicester House on the Strand. While in Leicester's home and
service, Spenser came into contact with Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Edward Dyer, then young men
at the center of an artistic culture in Elizabeth's court.
Probably through Leicester's influence, Spenser was in July 1580 appointed secretary to Arthur,
fourteenth Lord Grey de Wilton, then leaving England to take up office as Lord Deputy of
Ireland. As Grey‘s secretary, Spenser scripted the official narrative of the Lord Deputy‘s victory
and the massacre that followed in a letter penned on 12 November 1580 from Grey to the queen,
and in another on 2 November from Grey to Lord Burghley:
I have already undertaken a work tending to the same effect, which is in heroical verse
under the title of a Faerie Queene to represent all the moral virtues, assigning to every
vertue a Knight to be the patron and defender of the same, in whose actions and feats of
arms and chivalry the operations of that vertue whereof he is the protector, are to be
expressed, and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same, to
be beaten down and overcome.
Soon Spenser was turning his attention towards acquiring property and establishing himself as a
landed gentleman. Perhaps, it would be no exaggeration to say that Spenser loved Ireland, but
not its people, certainly not the rebels who were fighting for self-determination. By 1589 at the
latest, Spenser appears to have made the acquaintance of Sir Walter Raleigh. It was Raleigh who,
reading through Spenser's draft of The Faerie Queene, encouraged him to join him on a trip to

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 London in 1590, where he presented the celebrated poet to the Queen. Spenser used his time in
London to secure the printer William Ponsonby and published the first three books of The Faerie
Queene. He seems to have attempted to secure enough court patronage to make it possible for
him to remain in England. Although the Queen granted him a handsome pension - ₤50/- for his
labours, her generosity was questioned and moderated by the intercession of Lord Burghley. It is
important to remember that Spenser spent only one extended period in England after he made his
home in Ireland in 1580. Thus, Ireland – the political periphery, the irritant, war-torn, violence-
ravaged margin, is perhaps more crucial to The Faerie Queene than London – the nerve centre.
Ireland remained Spenser‘s only sphere of action, instead of affording a stepping stone for a
court appointment.i
Resuming his residence at Kilcolman after that disappointing visit to London, the poet shortly
thereafter fell in love with and courted Elizabeth Boyle, daughter of James Boyle, himself a
kinsman of Richard Boyle, later first earl of Cork. On 11th June 1594, they were married, an
event celebrated in Spenser's Amoretti and Epithalamion, published in London in the following
year.ii Spenser‘s self-consciously un-Petrarchan celebration of mutual love between the sexes
and of marriage is not confined to these two shorter poems but pervades the allegory of The
Faerie Queene as well.
According to Amoretti 80, the poet had completed the second installment (Books IV-VI) of The
Faerie Queene shortly before the marriage, although it was not to be printed until 1596. The
second installment dealt with the virtues of friendship, justice and courtesy. The ending of the
1590 first edition of the poem was altered so that Amoret and Scudamour were not reunited at
the end of Book III. Instead their story transcends its focus on private heterosexual bliss to
embody the idea of love as a social and public force.‖iii
Spenser returned to London for the publication of the second half of The Faerie Queene, and
probably remained there for almost a year, living in Essex House (formerly Leicester House) in
the Strand as a guest of the Earl of Essex. The Faerie Queene now comprised six books; its final
form was reached in the posthumous 1609 edition, with the inclusion of the fragment of a
seventh book, The Mutabilitie Cantos. The 1596 edition of The Faerie Queene sounds a less
upbeat note on the Elizabethan court than the first three books of the 1590 edition. This may well
be on account of changes in the political ambience, with Raleigh‘s fall.
Around this time, Spenser received patronage and bounty from three daughters of Sir John
Spencer of Althorp in Northamptonshire. These Spencers were granted a new coat of arms in
1595 allowing a connection with ancient baronial Despencers; hence the ‗house of ancient fame‘
of Prothalamion to whom the poet traced his name, a link apparently allowed by the ladies of
Althorp.
The 'upstart' Earl of Tyrone, Hugh O'Neill, had defeated the Queen's army at the Yellow Ford of
the Blackwater in August of 1598; by the following month, all of Munster was in rebellion, and
Spenser and his family fled to the city of Cork for safety. He was shortly thereafter dispatched by
the President of Munster, Sir Thomas Norris, to London with messages for the Privy Council.
Arriving late in 1598, he took up residence in King's Street.iv On delivering these urgent letters to

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 the Privy Council meeting at Whitehall Spenser was rewarded with eight pounds sterling. v Two
weeks later, he died there, on a Saturday in January 1599. Camden recorded that the Earl of
Essex paid for his funeral, and that poets carried his coffin, throwing their verses and pens, along
with many tears, into his grave. His tomb is situated, appropriately enough, adjacent to that of
Geoffrey Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.

3.2 Note on the Spenserian Stanza

The nine-line ‗Spenserian stanza‘ in which The Faerie Queene is written is Spenser‘s own
invention. Chaucer had used a seven-line stanza (‗rhyme royal‘) and the Italians such as Ariosto
and Tasso had used an eight-line one. The ninth line that Spenser added is an alexandrine, i.e. it
has two more syllables than the previous eight lines and together rhyme as follows: ababbcbcc.
The November eclogue of The Shepheardes Calendar contains Spenser‘s first experiments with
the alexandrine. The Spenserian stanza is sufficiently long and varied to entertain the reader with
its music at junctures when the narrative interest flags. The length of the stanzas and the
interlaced rhymes prevent abrupt transitions and does not lend itself to the depiction of rapid
motion or violent action; while the long closing lines provide a natural place to halt, and varies
the rhythm. Spenser‘s scheme of interlocked end-rhyme gives the verse a reflective, analytical
flavour, while the final alexandrine permits a further moment of reflection before moving to the
next stanza. This is why his stanzas are never hurried, and always graceful. Each stanza is
complete in itself: Spencer‘s thought develops in stanzas, not in single lines. For the execution of
this mode of development of thought, Spenser found the need to create the Spenserian stanza.

4. Summary:

The Faerie Queene is a poem of romantic and chivalrous adventures but it also has deeper
religious meaning which is embedded in the allegorical mode. The allegorical nature of the poem
is complex because it also contains political and historical allegory. Gloriana clearly represents
Queen Elizabeth I who was popularly called so. The political and historical allegory is not so
significant in Book I. The poem sets itself the dual task of guiding Spenser‘s post-Reformation
compatriot believer back into faith and promoting the English nation-state as the rising leader of
a pan-European Protestantism. Spenser draws upon the well-known Horatian prescription in Ars
poetica of combining profit with pleasure, which is the universal motto of imaginative writers in
Renaissance England who are otherwise unsure about the value and status of literature
independent of a didactic purpose.
Proem is a prologue to the whole of The Faerie Queene and not to Book I alone. Indeed, Book I
may be read as a proem to The Faerie Queene in its entirety. Books I, II and III were published
together in 1590, and Books IV, V and VI published together in 1596. Spenser changed the
earlier rounded off ending of Book III in 1596 in order to ensure a continuity from Book III to
Book IV. There are the mysterious fragments known as the Mutability Cantos, published
posthumously in 1609. The letter to Sir Walter Raleigh is prefixed to the first fragment
comprising the first three books of the long poem.

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 Spenser‘s Book of Holiness in particular concerns man‘s ―pilgrimage towards final unity with
God‖ rather than his ―conduct towards men.‖ Redcrosse Knight is a novice, uncouth, rustic, on
account of his upbringing as a foundling but of sound mettle. He, like the other knights of the
poem, seeks adventures on his own initiative instead of merely following orders. This alacrity
testifies to their worth and their readiness to perfect themselves through experience.
The precedence of Holiness over all other virtues in the allegorical order of the poem is meant to
ensure the preferred scale of priorities. In Book I, which closely follows the Revelation of St
John and the Christian prophetic tradition generally, the humble glory of the House of Holiness
eclipses Lucifera‘s palace of Pride, and the holy lustre of New Jerusalem outclasses the pomp
and splendour of Cleopolis. Spenser‘s allegory embraces both the pursuit of specific virtues and
conquest of specific vices by individual human beings and the struggle between good and evil
within an individual‘s being. The Redcrosse Knight‘s story can be read as the history of Christ‘s
triumph over Satan and death, of early Christianity‘s trials and tribulations in the face of Roman
and then barbarian resistance, of the Church in England itself since the coming of Christianity to
its shores, of Reformation England‘s more recent battles with Roman Catholicism, atheism and
radical sects, and even of England‘s part in the Crusades. The lion, according to Hadfield, has
been taken to stand for Henry VIII; Duessa is supposed to suggest Mary, Queen of Scots, and
Arthur, both Leicester and George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland.
Spenser‘s combination of the Christian sense of virtue as moral and spiritual excellence with the
Machiavellian sense suggests, perhaps, his belief in the reality of worldly struggle and in the
legitimate use of force to establish right over wrong, good over evil. It also suggests that he
privileges the life of action over the life of contemplation. Spenser‘s knights not only struggle
with the antagonistic forces of evil and fleshly frailty within their own beings, as Erasmus
recommends in Enchiridion militis Christiani (1503), but also with enemies without.

5. Issues:

5.1 Portrayal of Personifications in The Faerie Queene, Book I

The Faerie Queene is primarily an allegorical poem. It has a story which follows the pattern of
the chivalric romance, upholding the cardinal virtues personified as the knights each of whom
who occupies the central position in each book. The term, ‗Noble‘, which is central to an
understanding of the poem, suggests a confluence of good birth and good character. In those
times of considerable class fluidity views on the connection between class and individual worth
were bound to be complex, and often, self-contradictory. The emphasis on ‗nurture‘ is natural in
view of this self-made, university-educated poet‘s belief in the benefits of a sound education.
Again, for somebody not born a gentleman who rose to that position, the belief that a
‗Gentleman‘ can, to a great extent, be fashioned is a lesson learnt from life. Spenser is also
blending together the feudal chivalric idea of a perfect knight as a gentleman in the sense of
being well-born and finely nurtured with the Renaissance idea of the perfect courtier – a largely

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 civilianized career diplomat – that Castiglione had popularised in Il Cortegiano or the Boke of
the Courtier.

The idea of the twelve cardinal virtues derived from Aristotle, was to be distributed among the
twelve books of The Faerie Queene and each would be represented by a knight. Prince Arthur
recurs in every book along with the hero-knight of that book. He represents the super-virtue of
greatness and magnanimity of the soul. It is due to this that the knight in each book is in trouble
and is saved by Arthur. Human virtue could hold till a certain point and then fails, according to
the Calvinists. They held that the Grace of God was supreme. Spenser takes Prince Arthur as the
representative of this aspect of Divine Grace. The personification has a literal existence. At one
level it is operating on literal terms. At another it is operating on allegorical terms.
The Red Cross Knight represents the fundamental virtue of Holiness. In the very first stanza, the
Red Cross Knight is referred to as ―The Patron of true Holiness.‖ Repeated emphasis on the
Knight‘s unflinching devotion to Christ is meant to indicate the fact that the mission to reunite
Una with her parents is ultimately a task undertaken for the sake of Christ and true religion.
Thus, the Knight represents the human soul and its strife with all adversities before it achieves
the goal which the Knight represents—holiness in Book I.
Una, meaning ‗one‘, represents the Ultimate Truth, that is, the central focus of Godhead. Thus,
the Red Cross Knight‘s chivalric exploits for Una and his final reconciliation with her, besides
being in the tradition of chivalric romance, also subscribes to the tradition of religious allegory
where Holiness and Truth are finally united.
Duessa as the Whore of Babylon was taken by Protestant commentators on Revelation to be a
prophecy of the corrupt state of the Catholic Church in the last six days of the world. Duessa‘s
father is the Pope. Alternatively, Duessa the false enchantress is Mary, Queen of Scots, and the
false message she sends the Redcross Knight to try to stop Una‘s marriage stands for Mary‘s
false claim to the English throne. Book I is an apocalyptic re-reading, modelled on the Protestant
historiographers of church history in which the Redcross Knight is faced with a choice between
the innocent Una, representing the Invisible Church, and the seductive Duessa, representing the
corrupt Visible Church. Duessa, on the other hand, plays the beautiful but distressed woman best
fashioned to appeal to the knight‘s righteous chivalric ardour. Duessa is ‗double‘, implying
deceit. She is the exact opposite of Una. She appears to be beautiful but is exposed as ugly in the
end. At a literal level she deceives the knights and other men by her beauty, serving a figure of
lust. At another, deeper level, she stands for deceit in the general sense, appearing to be holy and
virtuous, but trapping knights. Both Duessa and Archimago are associated with the same
category of evil from Spenser‘s point of view.
Archimago is presented as a beadsman—a holy man who offers prayers for others as their
deputy. To the Protestant Spenser, Archimago is associated with Catholicism. He uses disguises
that are most likely to dupe Una, i.e. either as the Redcross Knight himself or as a hermit or as a
frail old man. He is a figure who works evil, is associated with evil but is not an allegorical
representation of evil. He is playing a part in a design of good and evil in interplay. He serves a

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 crucial function in the allegory without being a personified abstraction. He is associated with
falsehood, deceit and hypocrisy—allied to Satanic forces.
The three Pagan brothers allegorically indicate the degeneration of human institutions
progressively brought on by spiritual blindness.

5.2 Elements of Allegory in The Faerie Queene, Book I

In his prefactory letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, Spenser said that Faerie Queene contains an
allegory or ―dark conceit.‖ In the Middle Ages, Christian authors developed their own
mythology with a series of allegorical figures who are sometimes raised to the status of Gods.
The purely abstract are converted into the real. The forces which guided the life of the Middle
Ages were personified in the allegories.
For a spiritual allegory, The Faerie Queene offers remarkably subtle psychological exploration
and exposition. One is left with the impression that Spenser is no less interested in the workings
of the human mind than in the dissection of faith and man‘s relationship with religion.
The Redcrosse Knight‘s enemy, indeed, and Man‘s, enemy, is, Spenser implies, himself. And the
battle with one‘s self is eternal. Given the centrality of the mirror motif, it is necessary to add
that The Faerie Queene is not merely Elizabeth‘s mirror. It is every Christian believer‘s mirror: a
mirror that never lies and never flatters. It is likely that Spenser is trying to warn Elizabeth
against the dangers of narcissism by showing her, as he persistently does in The Faerie Queene,
a refracted image of the Queen in a plausible avatar.
The three Pagan brothers allegorically indicate the degeneration of human institutions
progressively brought on by spiritual blindness. The Fradubio episode offers the deluded
Redcrosse Knight a mirror in which to view his own errors, for Fradubio‘s inability to tell his
true love Fraelissa from the false sorceress Duessa was his doom. Spenser‘s Redcrosse Knight
meets Fradubio after being gulled by Duessa. This change is supposed to alert the reader to the
trial of Redcrosse‘s ability to read the signs of his own unfolding journey in the allegorical
figures that he encounters.
Una‘s lion represents the force of nature‘s law, supporting neglected or despised truth.‖ The
Lion‘s forcible entry into Abessa and Corceca‘s house and subsequent destruction of Kirkrapine
could be an allegory of King Henry VIII‘s dissolution of monasteries between 1536 and 1541 as
part of the English Reformation which he initiated through his Act of Supremacy in 1534.
Significantly, Una‘s stay at this inappropriate resting place will be extremely short-lived,
indicating that the mere dissolution of monasteries or foundation of an English Church did not
suffice. The new church will have to find and secure Truth. The Lion‘s defeat in the hands of
Sansloy signifies natural law‘s understandable incapacity to stem lawlessness in human society.
Pride in the Renaissance, is what prompts people continually to reach out for more than they
deserve. Lucifera is a usurper and will soon be revealed to be a tyrant as well. In conventional
Renaissance English political philosophy, where the law of primogeniture still applied, usurpers
were discredited as tyrants and vice versa.

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 The staggering physical detail Spenser packs into his allegory perhaps underlines the obsession
betrayed by many a contemporary of Spenser‘s with the body in life and death.All of Spenser‘s
repulsive allegorical creatures in Book I seem to be reptilian, from Error to Orgoglio to Duessa‘s
Dragon to Duessa herself. All are versions of the serpent, the architect of evil and man‘s fall.
Interestingly, the epithet Elfin is used repeatedly to describe the Redcrosse Knight as a persistent
reminder both of his mysterious or fantastic origin and of his connection to the Faerie Queene‘s
court. The implication is that though the locale is Faery Land, ruled by the Faerie Queene,
everyone who inhabits it or passes through it is not necessarily faeries. It is almost as though
‗Faery‘ were a racial cum religious identity deriving from the status of the sovereign queen
herself, i.e. equivalent to English cum Elizabethan cum Anglican.
As we shall see as Book I progresses, purification of the soul, necessary for its readiness to re-
engage in virtuous action, can only be achieved through contemplation. Hence, the adventure of
the knight of Holiness precedes those of all other knights, even Justice. The Faery knight‘s
wounds symbolize the dents made by Pride and the other cardinal sins, wounds that shall not
heal all too easily. The Redcrosse Knight seems to be confronting, one after another, personified,
somewhat magnified, projections of his own spiritual and moral shortcomings. From this, one
can try and form some idea of the complexity of Spenser‘s allegory.

5.3 Elements of the Moral Epic in The Faerie Queene, Book I

That Una should be riding alongside the Redcrosse Knight suggests that The Faerie Queene is
not only about self-discovery but also about mutual recognition. Una‘s assistance to her knight in
his self-realisation will in turn enable him to escort her to her parents after freeing them. Spenser
uses the romance ploy of mistaken identities.
It is quite obvious that the Redcross Knight‘s confusions stem partly from his unsuspecting
innocence and dependence on the senses and on his susceptibility to the cardinal sins and partly
from his limited understanding of Una or Truth.
Like Una, from whom he has been divided, the Redcrosse Knight, too, is wandering instead of
moving steadfastly towards his ultimate destination. Magic serves to distract the hero from his
purpose in the epic and romance genres. Wandering here suggests a disjunction from one‘s true
self. One is led astray not only by the senses but also by the affections and passions which the
former arouse.
Archimago uses disguises that are most likely to dupe Una, i.e. either as the Redcrosse Knight
himself or as a hermit or as a frail old man.
The Redcrosse Knight‘s hasty flight from the House of Lucifera is possible because of Duessa‘s
absence. Duplicity‘s absence results in a rare spark of native reason. It is the Dwarf symbolizing
Common Sense who catches the first glimpses of the dungeons in Lucifera‘s palace. It is
Common Sense who recommends a prompt departure from the sinful place.
As often happens in The Faerie Queene, the departure of the principal knights on separate,
unplanned adventures, often makes room for surrogate knights in supportive roles. Satyrane is
one such. The impression thus created is that of a collective and collaborative project of

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 betterment or amelioration, in which everyone‘s contribution is vital without being
indispensable.
Orgoglio, ‗this ―Geant‖ (the spelling recalls his mother Gea, ―Earth‖) represents fleshly and
irrational presumption, diabolical vainglory that parodies the glory sought by Gloriana‘s knights.
Like many of Spenser‘s giants, Orgoglio (Italian for ―pride‖) is the knight‘s inflated and negative
double, the old Adam (―red earth‖) in humanity that, like classical and biblical giants, seeks to
usurp God‘s place and block or overturn a new dispensation.‘
Spenser associates Duessa‘s beast with the Roman church. Typically, the imagery that the Bible
used to designate anti-Christian forces is here conveniently applied by a Protestant poet to
castigate Roman Catholicism.
The hyperbolic distances and range of inhospitable terrains covered by the protagonists are stand
for the extent of their willingness to undergo suffering for the sake of the values they cherish.
Geography is part of the allegorical scheme of The Faerie Queene, besides being interesting in
itself as a feature of the romance genre. Needless to say, in keeping with Queen Elizabeth‘s
Armada Portrait showing her fingers resting strategically on a globe and pointing to the
Americas, Faeryland, the domain of the Faerie Queene Gloriana, encompasses virtually the
whole discovered world, from the East to the West Indies.
In the debate with Despair, Una has to intervene to save the situation, once again exposing
Redcrosse‘s vulnerability. Una displays her presence of mind in first snatching away the dagger
and then targeting Redcrosse‘s overriding sentiment, ambition, with the well-intentioned taunt,
―Is this why you set out to destroy the Dragon?‖ So, Una as the Word of God has the last word.
She lends Redcrosse the conviction that he lacked. Once again, in a key reversal of roles, she
proves the better protector.
The becomingly feminine role assigned to Una is that of the inspiring and steering factor and that
of the final reward for the male combatants. Female resistance to evil is shown to be
fundamentally different in mechanism from male resistance.
The fact that Fidelia or Faith should be entrusted with the task of imparting heavenly knowledge
to Redcrosse suggests that Spenser considered the knowledge acquired through the good offices
of faith to be true knowledge and that he would not have wished to privilege the intellect over
faith.
Hope can operate effectively only after the more apparently powerful agent, Despair, has been
disregarded. Similarly, Charity or Charissa will step in to do her bit only after Patience has cured
Redcrosse with the help of Penance, Remorse and Repentance, in that order. Charity rather than
Faith gets one to heaven. This perception seems to be coloured by Spenser‘s emphasis
throughout The Faerie Queene on good deeds.
Redcrosse is brought to the House of Holiness by Una, then groomed by Fidelia, and is now
being imbued with renewed hope by Speranza. He has temporarily lost the power of functioning
on his own initiative. Redcrosse‘s own initiative was never ideal in terms of orientation or
effectiveness. Free will always requires temperance so as not to get out of hand.

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 Redcrosse‘s grave fallibility, described in such graphically repulsive detail, does not disqualify
him for the grand project at hand. Everyone is going out of their way to help him out of his
debacle. Fallibility rather than perfection emerges as a requisite in Spenser‘s blueprint for
heroism.
The most important point to ponder in Book I is whether the Redcrosse Knight‘s numerous
misadventures merely serve to delay his final mission unnecessarily or are they indispensable to
his preparation for that mission? All of these eventualities and obstacles are, in fact, part of the
project, not extraneous to it.
Essential goodness is shown to be amenable to edification, purgation and rectification in spite of
superficial corruptions. The suffering inflicted on Redcrosse is not just therapeutic but part of the
Catholic practice of amendment and reparation to God.
Essential evil by contrast is incorrigible. The antagonists in Book I are characterized not only by
the doggedness of their animosity towards the Redcrosse and Una, but also by the depth of their
submergence in sin and evil. Evil is intransigent, ever active, disruptive and divisive. The sudden
appearance of Archimago, disguised as a messenger from Fidessa, in the middle of the joyous
feast, suggests the malicious intention of rupturing the harmony just restored.
Redcrosse‘s qualification as Holiness entitles him to a privilege that no other knight shares in.
This detail underlines the fact that each knight‘s predominant virtue gives him a unique identity
and role, notwithstanding the overlap of other general strengths and weaknesses.
The Dragon is the invader, usurper and tyrant, everything that was deemed politically evil in that
age. Redcrosse‘s defeat of the dragon refers both to St George‘s victory and to Christ‘s, and he
fulfils the prophecy in Rev.20:2: ‗and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the
Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years‘.‖
The Redcrosse Knight is so addressed throughout Book I because he has not yet become Saint
George, a distinction reserved for him after he has completed his mission. As the story develops
through the rest of this stanza, it becomes increasingly obvious that Redcrosse‘s visit is also a
foundling‘s journey of self-realisation in the sense of learning of his lineage.
It is also an epic showing heroes striving through their individual exploits to steer their sovereign
nation to its glorious destiny. Spenser‘s choice of the Arthurian legend confirms his wish to write
a national epic. Lodovico Ariosto (1474-1533) wrote Orlando Furioso using the legend of
Charlemagne. Torquato Tasso (1544-95) wrote the chivalric romance Rinaldo in 1562 and the
epic about the First Crusade led by Godfrey of Boulogne called Gerusalemme Liberata in 1581.
Spenser seems to be reading all his epic models allegorically. The Faerie Queene is also a
chivalric romance in that it combines love and adventure in the motif of a quest. As a Christian
allegorical romance, however, the love sought is essentially spiritual and the adventure it narrates
is psychic and psychomachic.

5.4 Elements of the Chivalric Romance in The Faerie Queene, Book I

The Faerie Queene is a chivalric romance, obviously drawing upon Malory‘s Morte D’Arthur, in
that it charts errant knights‘ individual quests for personal glory through good humanitarian

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 deeds. On a deeper level, however, it adapts the familiar ingredients of medieval romance – in
the specific case of Book I, the mummers‘ play theme of Saint George‘s battle with the Dragon,
which also figured in ―the popular romance of the Seven Champions of Christendom‖ – towards
a painstakingly elaborate and tangled allegory quintessentially Renaissance in its showcasing of
authorial ingenuity.
It is worth noting how Spenser manages his multi-plot, multi-character episodic romance
narrative through deft movements back and forth in time interspersed with explanatory
recapitulations.
Consistently with the allegorical binaries Book I is strewn with, the Fountain of Sloth is the
antitype of the Well of Life, just as the House of Pride is the antitype of the House of Holiness.
No one short of Arthur is capable of rescuing the Redcrosse Knight from his redoubtable enemy,
Orgoglio. Arthur is not just the Redcrosse Knight‘s saviour but Una‘s too. Her grief too makes a
severe dent in her rationality. It shows that she too is a trifle flawed and not invariably perfect.
The power of Arthur‘s shield, as described in this stanza, is primarily as a severe instrument of
punitive justice.
Arthur is the epitome of the lost golden age of chivalry. This convergence of heavenly grace, a
spiritual concept, and chivalric conduct, a social code of conduct, in the same allegorical person,
Arthur, is the defining principle behind Spenser‘s choice of the genre of chivalric romance for
his allegory of faith.
―Since everyone else knows where Gloriana is – i.e. in her capital city Cleopolis – and could
easily inform him, his quest is less a matter of geographic knowledge as that of proving his
worthiness of love.
It is worth noting that Spenser‘s heroes, Arthur chief of all, are unstinted in their readiness to
assist those in distress despite their enormous personal burden of unfinished business. In this,
they manifest their creator‘s emphasis on selfless deeds being the mark of a true Christian
citizen.
Timias means ―honoured‖. The personage that inspired the figure of Timias is none other than
the poem‘s dedicatee, Sir Walter Raleigh. Timias, who reappears in Books Three, Four, and Six,
is something like a surrogate Arthur, who is struck by calamities that could have happened to
Arthur.
The Redcrosse Knight is not the first to attempt a rescue of Una‘s incarcerated parents. He will
succeed, while his predecessors have failed, because Holiness alone is capable of restoring Man
to something akin to his prelapsarian state. The Redcrosse Knight‘s innocence, unblemished by
any history of violence, is a qualification when it comes to restoring prelapsarian Truth. The
pointed mention of Eden reveals that Una‘s parents are indeed Adam and Eve.

6. Glossary:
Adamant a mythical substance proverbial for its hardness
Aeolus god of the winds
Alcides Hercules by another name

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 Cassiopeias another northern constellation
Cephise a river
Cerberus watchdog of the Underworld
Charissa charity
Cocytus one of the four rivers of Hades
Cybeles mother of the gods
Cyparissus beloved of Apollo
Dragonets young dragons
Georgos ‗man of the earth‘, ploughman
Griffon a monster combining the body of a lion with the head and wings of an eagle
grisly Dame Proserpine
Hamadryades nymph of the trees
Hebrus a river with very pure waters
Hesperus Vesper, morning and star
Labryde, in Greek, tempestuous
Nereus sea-god of the Mediterranean
Northern wagoner northern constellation
Pardale leopard
Phison river in Paradise
Phlegeton river in the Underworld
Phloe nymph beloved of Pan
Rauran hill in Wales
sacred muse Clio, Muse of History
Silo the pool of Siloam that cured the blind man, John ix.7
silver shielde Redcrosse‘s armour is that of every Christian
Stheneboea wife of Proteus who killed herself when her love was rejected by Bellerophon
Tethys sea goddess, wife of Oceanus
The God of warre Mars
The Graces, Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne, who collectively epitomize grace and beauty, will
figure prominently in Book VI.
Thyamis in Greek, passion
Tityus giant killed by Zeus for assaulting Leto

7. Self Assessment Questions:

(a) Discuss the allegorical significance of The Faerie Queene Book I.
(b) Discuss the functions of what Spenser calls ‗darke conceit‘.
(c) Discuss Spenser‘s interfusion of the romance and the epic form in Book One.
(d) Comment on the ending of The Faerie Queene Book I.
(e) Write a short essay on Spenser‘s use of epic similes in The Faerie Queene Book I.
(f) Attempt a critical appreciation of Redcrosse‘s freeing of Una‘s parents in Canto Twelve.

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 (g) Comment on Spenser‘s depiction of nature in The Faerie Queene Book I.
(h) Write an essay on Spenser‘s portrayal of personifications in The Faerie Queene Book I.

8. Bibliography:
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Burlinson, Christopher. Allegory, Space and the Material World in the Writings of Edmund
Spenser. Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2006.
Burrow, Colin. Epic Romance: Homer to Milton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
Chaudhuri, Sukanta, Infirm Glory. Shakespeare and the Renaissance Image of Man. Oxford:
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- - -. A Companion to Pastoral Poetry of the English Renaissance. Manchester: Manchester
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- - -. Renaissance Pastoral and Its English Developments. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Eggert, Katherine. Showing Like a Queen: Female Authority and Literary Experiment in
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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Goth, Maik. ‗Monsters and the Poetic Imagination in the Faerie Queene: ‗Most Ugly Shapes, and
Horrible Aspects.‘ (The Manchester Spenser). Manchester: Manchester University Press,
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Greene, Thomas, ‗Norms of Epic‘, Comparative Literature, Vol.13, No.3 (Summer, 1961),
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Jameson, Frederic, ‗Magical Narrative: Romance as Genre‘, New Literary History, Vol.7, No.1,
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 Kurman, George, ‗Ekphrasis in Epic Poetry‘, Comparative Literature, Vol.26, No. (Winter,
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Wells, Robin Headlam. Spenser’s Faerie Queene and the Cult of Elizabeth. New York: Barnes
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