Faerie Queen Flashcards
Who wrote the Faerie Queen?
Edmund Spenser
Who was Edmund Spenser?
Edmund Spenser, 1552?–1599, English poet, b. London. He was the friend of men eminent in literature and at court, including Gabriel Harvey, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Robert Sidney, earl of Leicester. After serving as secretary to the Bishop of Rochester, Spenser was appointed in 1580 secretary to Lord Grey, lord deputy of Ireland. Afterward Spenser lived in Ireland, holding minor civil offices and receiving the lands and castle of Kilcolman, Co. Cork. In 1589, under Raleigh’s sponsorship, Spenser went to London, where he apparently sought court preferment and publication of the first three books of The Faerie Queene. After the Tyrone rebellion of 1598, in which Kilcolman Castle was burned, he returned to London, where he died in 1599. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. Recognized by his contemporaries as the foremost poet of his time, Spenser was not only a master of meter and language but a profound moral poet as well. Patterning his literary career after that of Vergil, Spenser first published 12 pastoral eclogues of The Shepheardes Calender (1579), which treat the shepherd as rustic priest and poet. His Complaints and Daphnaida, the latter an elegy on Douglas Howard, both appeared in 1591. In 1595 Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, a pastoral allegory dealing with Spenser’s first London journey and the vices inherent in court life, and Astrophel, an elegy on Sir Philip Sidney, were published. In the same year Amoretti, Spenser’s sonnet sequence commemorating his courtship of Elizabeth Boyle, and Epithalamion, a beautiful and complex wedding poem in honor of his marriage in 1594, were also published. Fowre Hymnes, which explains Spenser’s Platonic and Christian views of love and beauty, and Prothalamion appeared in 1596. Also in 1596 the first six books of The Faerie Queene, Spenser’s unfinished masterpiece, appeared. Although the poem is an epic, his method was to treat the moral virtues allegorically. The excellence of The Faerie Queene lies in the complexity and depth of Spenser’s moral vision and in the Spenserian stanza (nine lines, eight of iambic pentameter followed by one of iambic hexameter, rhyming ababbcbcc), which Spenser invented for his masterpiece. Spenser’s only extended prose work, A View of the Present State of Ireland, was first printed in 1633.
What is an EPIC?
epic, long, exalted narrative poem, usually on a serious subject, centered on a heroic figure. The earliest epics, known as primary, or original, epics, were shaped from the legends of an age when a nation was conquering and expanding; such is the foundation of the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, of the Iliad and the Odyssey of the Greek Homer, and of the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. Literary, or secondary, epics, written in conscious imitation of earlier forms, are most notably represented by Vergil’s Aeneid and Milton’s Paradise Lost. The epic, which makes great demands on a poet’s knowledge and skill, has been deemed the most ambitious of poetic forms. Some of its conventions, followed by epic writers in varying degrees, include a hero who embodies national, cultural, or religious ideals and upon whose actions depends to some degree the fate of his people; a course of action in which the hero performs great and difficult deeds; a whole era in the history of civilization; the intervention and recognition of divine or supernatural powers; the concern with eternal human problems; and a dignified and elaborate poetic style. Other works classified as epics are the Indian Mahabharata and Ramayana, the French Song of Roland, the Spanish Song of the Cid, the Germanic Niebelungenlied, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Tasso’s Gerusaleme Liberta, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and Camões’s Lusiads. A mock epic is a form of satire in which trivial characters and events are treated with all the exalted epic conventions and are made to look ridiculous by the incongruity. The plot of Pope’s Rape of the Lock, one of the most famous mock epics, is based on a quarrel over the theft of a lady’s curl.
What is an allegory?
allegory, in literature, symbolic story that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface. The characters in an allegory often have no individual personality, but are embodiments of moral qualities and other abstractions. The allegory is closely related to the parable, fable, and metaphor, differing from them largely in intricacy and length. A great variety of literary forms have been used for allegories. The medieval morality play Everyman, personifying such abstractions as Fellowship and Good Deeds, recounts the death journey of Everyman. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, a prose narrative, is an allegory of man’s spiritual salvation. Spenser’s poem The Faerie Queene, besides being a chivalric romance, is a commentary on morals and manners in 16th-century England as well as a national epic. Although allegory is still used by some authors, its popularity as a literary form has declined in favor of a more personal form of symbolic expression (see symbolists).
Breifly describe the Faerie Queene.
In The Faerie Queene, Spenser creates an allegory: The characters of his far-off, fanciful “Faerie Land” are meant to have a symbolic meaning in the real world. In Books I and III, the poet follows the journeys of two knights, Redcrosse and Britomart, and in doing so he examines the two virtues he considers most important to Christian life–Holiness and Chastity. Redcrosse, the knight of Holiness, is much like the Apostle Peter: In his eagerness to serve his Lord, he gets himself into unforeseen trouble that he is not yet virtuous enough to handle. His quest is to be united with Una, who signifies Truth–Holiness cannot be attained without knowledge of Christian truth. In his immature state, he mistakes falsehood for truth by following the deceitful witch Duessa. He pays for this mistake with suffering, but in the end, this suffering makes way for his recovery in the House of Holiness, aided by Faith, Hope, and Charity. With newfound strength and the grace of God, he is able to conquer the dragon that represents all the evil in the world.
In a different manner, Britomart also progresses in her virtue of chastity. She already has the strength to resist lust, but she is not ready to accept love, the love she feels when she sees a vision of her future husband in a magic mirror. She learns to incorporate chaste resistance with active love, which is what Spenser sees as true Christian love: moderation. Whereas Redcrosse made his own mistakes (to show to us the consequences of an unholy life), it is not Britomart but the other characters in Book III who show the destructive power of an unchaste life. Spenser says in his Preface to the poem that his goal is to show how a virtuous man should live. The themes of Book I and Book III come together in the idea that our native virtue must be augmented or transformed if it is to become true Christian virtue. Spenser has a high regard for the natural qualities of creatures; he shows that the satyrs, the lion, and many human characters have an inborn inclination toward the good. And yet, he consistently shows their failure when faced with the worst evils. These evils can only be defeated by the Christian good.
What are the political overtones within the poem?
High on Spenser’s list of evils is the Catholic Church, and this enmity lends a political overtone to the poem, since the religious conflicts of the time were inextricably tied to politics. The poet is unashamed in his promotion of his beloved monarch, Queen Elizabeth; he takes considerable historical license in connecting her line with King Arthur. Spenser took a great pride in his country and in his Protestant faith. He took aim at very real corruption within the Catholic Church; such attacks were by no means unusual in his day, but his use of them in an epic poem raised his criticism above the level of the propagandists.
What sources does the F.Q derive from?
As a purely poetic work, The Faerie Queene was neither original nor always remarkable; Spenser depends heavily on his Italian romantic sources (Ariosto & Tasso), as well as medieval and classical works like The Romance of the Rose and The Aeneid . It is Spenser’s blending of such diverse sources with a high-minded allegory that makes the poem unique and remarkable. He is able to take images from superficial romances, courtly love stories, and tragic epics alike, and give them real importance in the context of the poem. No image is let fall from Spenser’s pen that does not have grave significance, and this gives The Faerie Queene the richness that has kept it high among the ranks of the greatest poetry in the English language.
The Faerie Queene is a strongly Protestant work in which Spenser intentionally incorporates his own beliefs into the Story. What has made the poem popular among readers of all faiths, not just Protestants?
While Spenser spends a good deal of time attacking the Catholic Church, he makes it clear that there is a greater overall evil that threatens mankind, the very basic evil of sin. This is the dragon that Redcrosse defeats at the end of Book I. By broadening the battle to good versus evil, the spiritual part of man’s existence, Spenser expands his audience far beyond the narrow range of Elizabethan Protestants.
What is Spenser’s view of pagan (non-Christian) virtue? Does it have any value to him?
Yes and no. Spenser is quick to recognize that native virtue (as usually represented by forest creatures or people brought up in the forest) is oriented toward the good. By comparison to the many perverse characters in the poem, this is commendable, but it pales in comparison to the virtue of the Christian heroes. Natural virtue is good as a building block toward the true religion, but if it falls short, it is worthless, mere idolatry.
In what ways are the stories of Redcrosse and Britomart parallel?
Superficially, they are hardly parallel at all; Redcrosse goes through an arduous process of discovery and cleansing until the final dramatic showdown and glorious victory, while Britomart pops in and out of the narrative, helping out here and there, but never, it seems, getting any closer to her goal. But on the level of the allegory, both stories elaborate on a virtue, instructing the reader how to recognize falsehood or insincere chastity, until the virtue is mature and can conquer true evil. In this respect Book I and Book III have a similar buildup and climax, despite the obvious difference in plot.
What is Spenser’s view of “courtly love”?
Courtly love is the love of Arthurian romances and their Italian counterparts, sources that Spenser used extensively. However, he tends to represent courtly love as superficial and even silly, a far cry from pure Christian love. See the ridiculous task that the Squire of Dames tells Satyrane he must perform for his lady (III.vii.53-61)–such devices were common to courtly love stories, and Spenser only mocks them.
The allegory indicates that Holiness cannot survive without Chastity; does Chastity depend upon Holiness? There is little or no reference to God or Christ in Book III, as compared to Book I; what are the indications that Chastity remains a Christian virtue? Is Britomart as much of a Christian warrior as Redcrosse?
