The Faerie Queene

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
The Shepheardes Calender (1579)
The Faerie Queene (1590; 1596)

The first three books of The Faerie Queene were published in 1590 and then republished with Books IV through VI in 1596.

Spenser's Poem

Characters

Allegory

Sources

Tudor

Timeline

Elizabethan Literature

Spenser's Poem

  A courtesy book
     Six books exhibit the virtues of Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice and Courtesy.
  A romantic epic: adventures and marvels
  A national epic: celebrates the Tudors, Queen Elizabeth, and the English nation.

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Characters

  Arthur - The central hero of the poem, although he does not play the most significant role in its action. Arthur is in search of the Faerie Queene, whom he saw in a vision. The "real" Arthur was a king of the Britons in the 5th or 6th century A.D., but the little historical information we have about him is overwhelmed by his legend.

  Faerie Queene (also known as Gloriana) - Though she never appears in the poem, the Faerie Queene is the focus of the poem; her castle is the ultimate goal or destination of many of the poem’s characters. She represents Queen Elizabeth.

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Redcrosse - The Redcrosse Knight is the hero of Book I; he stands for the virtue of Holiness. His real name is discovered to be George, and he ends up becoming St. George, the patron saint of England. On another level, though, he is the individual Christian fighting against evil--or the Protestant fighting the Catholic Church.

  Una - Redcrosse's future wife, and the other major protagonist in Book I. She is meek, humble, and beautiful, but strong when it is necessary; she represents Truth, which Redcrosse must find in order to be a true Christian.

 Duessa - The opposite of Una, she represents falsehood and nearly succeeds in getting Redcrosse to leave Una for good. She appears beautiful, but it is only skin-deep.

 Archimago - Next to Duessa, a major antagonist in Book I. Archimago is a sorcerer capable of changing his own appearance or that of others; in the end, his magic is proven weak and ineffective.

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Allegory

  The title character, the Faerie Queene herself, is meant to represent Queen Elizabeth. Redcrosse represents the individual Christian, on the search for Holiness, who is armed with faith in Christ, the shield with the bloody cross. He is traveling with Una, whose name means "truth." For a Christian to be holy, he must have true faith, and so the plot of Book I mostly concerns the attempts of evildoers to separate Redcrosse from Una.

  Most of these villains are meant by Spenser to represent one thing in common: the Roman Catholic Church. The poet felt that, in the English Reformation, the people had defeated "false religion" (Catholicism) and embraced "true religion" (Protestantism/ Anglicanism). Thus, Redcrosse must defeat villains who mimic the falsehood of the Roman Church.

  Duessa also represents the Roman Church, both because she is "false faith," and because of her rich, purple and gold clothing, which, for Spenser, displays the greedy wealth and arrogant pomp of Rome. Much of the poet's imagery comes from a passage in the Book of Revelation, which describes the "whore of Babylon"--many Protestant readers took this Biblical passage to indicate the Catholic Church.

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Sources

 Italian poets Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (Orlando Mad, 1516) and Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered, 1575)
  Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid.
  Ovid

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Tudor

The ruling family of England from 1485 to 1603. Following the Plantagenets and preceding the Stuarts, the Tudor line included Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth the Great (Elizabeth I).

Edward VI Elizabeth's younger half-brother, he briefly ruled England from 1547 to 1553.
Mary I Mary Tudor, also known as "Bloody Mary" for her persecution of non- Catholics, was Elizabeth's older half-sister, and ruled England from 1553 to her death in 1558. A fervent Catholic, she was married to the future Philip II of Spain.

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Timeline

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Plot Against Queen Elizabeth

   Ridolfi Plot: A 1570 to 1571 plot led by an Italian conspirator (Roberto di Ridolfi) to overthrow Elizabeth and install Mary Queen of Scots on the throne of England. The plot involved assassinating Elizabeth and using the Spanish Army to conquer the countryside.
   Duke de Guise Plot: A 1582 Catholic plot on Elizabeth's life
   Babington Plot: Anthony Babington led this 1586 plot to overthrow Elizabeth and put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. Mary was thrown into the Tower of London and subsequently executed for involvement in this plot, which Walsingham cleverly detected and exposed.
   Edmund Spenser's poetry today seems a description of impossible fantasy scenes. However, a major inspiration for these faerie realms was the glittering splendor he saw in Elizabeth's court. We might also think that his emphasis on knights and jousting is another manifestation of fantasy; yet these, too, had their basis in Elizabeth's court: although gunpowder had put an end to the era of armored knights carrying lances on horseback in real battles, jousting and tournaments were much alive as forms of entertainment for Elizabeth and her aristocracy.

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Elizabethan Literature

  Elizabeth's reign saw playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, poets like Edmund Spenser, and men of science and letters like Francis Bacon. The era also saw the beginning of William Shakespeare's work.
  Many of the writers, thinkers and artists of the day enjoyed the patronage of members of Elizabeth's court, and their works often involved or referred to the great Queen; indeed, she was the symbol of the day. The "Elizabethan Age," generally considered one of golden ages in English literature, was thus appropriately named.

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