The Faerie Queen: Edmund Spencer - #Summary_and

The Faerie Queen: Edmund Spencer - #Summary_and

#Critical_Analysis

Spencer was a celebrant of English nationality, empire and royalty. The Faerie Queen is at one level a tribute to his patron queen and the Earl of Leicester as well as a praise of the brave knights, and faithful citizens of England. At times the poet appears to be a mere flatterer. He identifies Queen Elizabeth with mythical goddesses as an embodiment of all perfection and as a paragon of all virtues.

He calls her Gloriana or the empress of all nobleness; Belephoebe, or the princess of all sweetness and beauty; Marcella, or the lady of all compassion and grace; Britomart or the armed votary of all pure; Cynthia the poetess and Tranquil in leaning a queen who was a goddess heavenly bright/ Mirror of grace and majesty drive” (The invocation to Faerie & Queen). The eulogy is too much sometimes!

But the Faerie Queen is not only a flattery. Spenser was a Renaissance man, influenced by Renaissance new Platonism and humanism, a celebrator of Physical beauty, love, romance and adventure, though he was a profound idealist and analyst of good and evil. The Faerie Queen is basically a romance on its surface, a romance about love and adventure of “brave (British) knights and faithful ladies;” Fierce wares and faithful loves shall moralize my song” (stanza 1). It is in this sense a romantic epic full of adventures and marvels, dragons, witches, giants, battles, enchanted trees and castles. It has intricate plots, amazing episodes heroic characters, elaborate descriptions and so on. But due to the allegory suggested by names of character and places and historical, religious and mythical allusions, the epic also teaches moral lessons along with the delight of surface romance.

As Spenser stated in his letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, The Faerie Queen was also supposed to be a “courtesy book”. He intended to teach his learned reader and the people the virtues of a perfect gentleman through its moral, religious and politico-historical allegories behind, the delightful romantic story. He said.” The general end (purpose) of the entire book is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous discipline.” He planned to write twelve books; each one would be an adventure of a knight representing one moral virtue which he would prove by fighting against the evils in the course of the adventure. The first book, for example, narrates the romance, adventure of a British knight who represents ‘holiness’ on the moral level. Saint George the patron saint of England on the legendary level, and one of the qualities of the earl of Leicester (on the historical level). He could complete only six books narrating the adventure of six knights representing 1.Holiness, 2.Temperance, 3.Chastity 4.Friendship, 5.Justice, and 6.Courtesy. The other six are never mentioned, and Spenser didn’t write those planned books. All the twelve knights were supposed to represent the twelve qualities of a noble gentleman whose perfect example was the earl of Leicester. The fairy queen sends these knightly on different adventures as opportunities to prove their gentlemanliness and knightly qualities.

For The Faerie Queen, Spencer originated a nine line verse stanza, now known as the Spenserian stanza – the first eight lines are iambic pentameter, and the ninth, iambic hexameter, the rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. The melodious verse, combined with Spenser’s sensuous imagery and deliberate use of archaic language evocative of the medieval past (as in the earlier Shepherd's Calendar), serve not only to relieve the high moral seriousness of his theme but to create a complex panorama of great splendor. Spenser’s lush and expansive imagination and vigorous approach to the structure made him a powerful influence on John Milton and the romantic poets, including John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley.