The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books I–III were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IV–VI. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 stanzas [1] it is one of the longest poems in the English language; it is also the work in which Spenser invented the verse form known as the Spenserian stanza.[2] On a literal level, the poem follows several knights as a means to examine different virtues, and though the text is primarily an allegorical work, it can be read on several levels of allegory, including as praise (or, later, criticism) of Queen Elizabeth I. In Spenser's "Letter of the Authors", he states that the entire epic poem is "cloudily enwrapped in Allegorical devices", and that the aim of publishing The Faerie Queene was to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline".[3]

The Faerie Queene
by Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene frontispiece.jpg
Title page of The Faerie Queene, circa 1590
CountryKingdom of England
LanguageEarly Modern English
Genre(s)Epic poem
Publication date1590, 1596
LinesOver 36,000
MetreSpenserian stanza

Spenser presented the first three books of The Faerie Queene to Elizabeth I in 1589, probably sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh. The poem was a clear effort to gain court favour, and as a reward Elizabeth granted Spenser a pension for life amounting to £50 a year,[4] though there is no further evidence that Elizabeth I ever read any of the poem. This royal patronage elevated the poem to a level of success that made it Spenser's defining work.[5]


Holiness defeats Error: an illustration from Book I, Part l of an 1895–1897 edition

Book I is centered on the virtue of holiness as embodied in the Redcrosse Knight. Largely self-contained, Book I can be understood to be its own miniature epic. The Redcrosse Knight and his lady Una travel together as he fights the monster Errour, then separately after the wizard Archimago tricks the Redcrosse Knight into thinking that Una is unchaste using a false dream. After he leaves, the Redcrosse Knight meets Duessa, who feigns distress in order to entrap him. Duessa leads the Redcrosse Knight to captivity by the giant Orgoglio. Meanwhile, Una overcomes peril, meets Arthur, and finally finds the Redcrosse Knight and rescues him from his capture, from Duessa, and from Despair. Una and Arthur help the Redcrosse Knight recover in the House of Holiness, with the House's ruler Caelia and her three daughters joining them; there the Redcrosse Knight sees a vision of his future. He then returns Una to her parents' castle and rescues them from a dragon, and the two are betrothed after resisting Archimago one last time.






Major charactersEdit

  • Acrasia, seductress of knights. Guyon destroys her Bower of Bliss at the end of Book 2. Similar characters in other epics: Circe (Homer's Odyssey), Alcina (Ariosto), Armida (Tasso), or the fairy woman from Keats' poem "La Belle Dame sans Merci".
Britomart viewing Artegall by Walter Crane from Book III, Part VII of an 1895–1897 edition
  • Caelia, the ruler of the House of Holiness.
  • Despair, a distraught man in a cave, his name coming from his mood. Using just rhetoric, he nearly persuades Redcrosse Knight to commit suicide, before Una steps in.
Florimell's Flight by Washington Allston


Allegory of virtueEdit






The Faerie Queene was written during the Reformation, a time of religious and political controversy. After taking the throne following the death of her half-sister Mary, Elizabeth changed the official religion of the nation to Protestantism.[8] The plot of book one is similar to Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which was about the persecution of the Protestants and how Catholic rule was unjust.[9] Spenser includes the controversy of Elizabethan church reform within the epic. Gloriana has godly English knights destroy Catholic continental power in Books I and V.[10] Spenser also endows many of his villains with "the worst of what Protestants considered a superstitious Catholic reliance on deceptive images".[11]





Some literary works sacrifice historical context to archetypal myth, reducing poetry to Biblical quests, whereas Spenser reinforces the actuality of his story by adhering to archetypal patterns.[14] Throughout The Faerie Queene, Spenser does not concentrate on a pattern "which transcends time" but "uses such a pattern to focus the meaning of the past on the present".[14] By reflecting on the past, Spenser achieves ways of stressing the importance of Elizabeth's reign. In turn, he does not "convert event into myth" but "myth into event".[14] Within The Faerie Queene, Spenser blurs the distinction between archetypal and historical elements deliberately. For example, Spenser probably does not believe in the complete truth of the British Chronicle, which Arthur reads in the House of Alma.[14] In this instance, the Chronicle serves as a poetical equivalent for factual history. Even so, poetical history of this kind is not myth; rather, it "consists of unique, if partially imaginary, events recorded in chronological order".[14] The same distinction resurfaces in the political allegory of Books I and V. However, the reality to interpreted events becomes more apparent when the events occurred nearer to the time when the poem was written.[14]

Symbolism and allusionEdit

Throughout The Faerie Queene, Spenser creates "a network of allusions to events, issues, and particular persons in England and Ireland" including Mary, Queen of Scots, the Spanish Armada, the English Reformation, and even the Queen herself.[15] It is also known that James VI of Scotland read the poem, and was very insulted by Duessa – a very negative depiction of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots.[16] The Faerie Queene was then banned in Scotland. This led to a significant decrease in Elizabeth's support for the poem.[16] Within the text, both the Faerie Queene and Belphoebe serve as two of the many personifications of Queen Elizabeth, some of which are "far from complimentary".[15]

Though it praises her in some ways, The Faerie Queene questions Elizabeth's ability to rule so effectively because of her gender, and also inscribes the "shortcomings" of her rule.[17] There is a character named Britomart who represents married chastity. This character is told that her destiny is to be an "immortal womb" – to have children.[17] Here, Spenser is referring to Elizabeth's unmarried state and is touching on anxieties of the 1590s about what would happen after her death since the kingdom had no heir.[17]

The Faerie Queene's original audience would have been able to identify many of the poem's characters by analyzing the symbols and attributes that spot Spenser's text. For example, readers would immediately know that "a woman who wears scarlet clothes and resides along the Tiber River represents the Roman Catholic Church".[15] However, marginal notes jotted in early copies of The Faerie Queene suggest that Spenser's contemporaries were unable to come to a consensus about the precise historical referents of the poem's "myriad figures".[15] In fact, Sir Walter Raleigh's wife identified many of the poem's female characters as "allegorical representations of herself".[15] Other symbols prevalent in The Faerie Queene are the numerous animal characters present in the poem. They take the role of "visual figures in the allegory and in illustrative similes and metaphors".[18] Specific examples include the swine present in Lucifera's castle who embodied gluttony, and Duessa, the deceitful crocodile who may represent Mary, Queen of Scots, in a negative light.[citation needed]

The House of Busirane episode in Book III in The Faerie Queene is partially based on an early modern English folktale called "Mr. Fox's Mottos". In the tale, a young woman named Lady Mary has been enticed by Mr. Fox, who resembles Bluebeard in his manner of killing his wives. She defeats Mr. Fox and tells about his deeds. Notably, Spenser quotes the story as Britomart makes her way through the House, with warning mottos above each doorway "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold".[19]


Spenser's intentionsEdit

While writing his poem, Spenser strove to avoid "gealous opinions and misconstructions" because he thought it would place his story in a "better light" for his readers.[20] Spenser stated in his letter to Raleigh, published with the first three books,[17] that "the general end of the book is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline".[20] Spenser considered his work "a historical fiction" which men should read for "delight" rather than "the profit of the ensample".[20] The Faerie Queene was written for Elizabeth to read and was dedicated to her. However, there are dedicatory sonnets in the first edition to many powerful Elizabethan figures.[21]





Social commentaryEdit

In October 1589, after nine years in Ireland,[24] Spenser voyaged to England and saw the Queen. It is possible that he read to her from his manuscript at this time. On 25 February 1591, the Queen gave him a pension of fifty pounds per year.[25] He was paid in four instalments on 25 March, 24 June, 29 September, and 25 December.[26] After the first three books of The Faerie Queene were published in 1590, Spenser found himself disappointed in the monarchy; among other things, "his annual pension from the Queen was smaller than he would have liked" and his humanist perception of Elizabeth's court "was shattered by what he saw there".[27] Despite these frustrations, however, Spenser "kept his aristocratic prejudices and predispositions".[27] Book VI stresses that there is "almost no correlation between noble deeds and low birth" and reveals that to be a "noble person," one must be a "gentleman of choice stock".[27]

Throughout The Faerie Queene, virtue is seen as "a feature for the nobly born" and within Book VI, readers encounter worthy deeds that indicate aristocratic lineage.[27] An example of this is the hermit to whom Arthur brings Timias and Serena. Initially, the man is considered a "goodly knight of a gentle race" who "withdrew from public service to religious life when he grew too old to fight".[27] Here, we note the hermit's noble blood seems to have influenced his gentle, selfless behaviour. Likewise, audiences acknowledge that young Tristram "speaks so well and acts so heroically" that Calidore "frequently contributes him with noble birth" even before learning his background; in fact, it is no surprise that Tristram turns out to be the son of a king, explaining his profound intellect.[28] However, Spenser's most peculiar example of noble birth is demonstrated through the characterization of the Salvage Man. Using the Salvage Man as an example, Spenser demonstrated that "ungainly appearances do not disqualify one from noble birth".[28] By giving the Salvage Man a "frightening exterior," Spenser stresses that "virtuous deeds are a more accurate indication of gentle blood than physical appearance.[28]

On the opposite side of the spectrum, The Faerie Queene indicates qualities such as cowardice and discourtesy that signify low birth. During his initial encounter with Arthur, Turpine "hides behind his retainers, chooses ambush from behind instead of direct combat, and cowers to his wife, who covers him with her voluminous skirt".[29] These actions demonstrate that Turpine is "morally emasculated by fear" and furthermore, "the usual social roles are reversed as the lady protects the knight from danger.[29] Scholars believe that this characterization serves as "a negative example of knighthood" and strives to teach Elizabethan aristocrats how to "identify a commoner with political ambitions inappropriate to his rank".[29]

Poetic structureEdit

The Faerie Queene was written in Spenserian stanza, which Spenser created specifically for The Faerie Queene. Spenser varied existing epic stanza forms, the rhyme royal used by Chaucer, with the rhyme pattern ABABBCC, and the ottava rima, which originated in Italy, with the rhyme pattern ABABABCC. Spenser's stanza is the longest of the three, with nine iambic lines – the first eight of them five footed, that is, pentameters, and the ninth six footed, that is, a hexameter, or Alexandrine – which form "interlocking quatrains and a final couplet".[30] The rhyme pattern is ABABBCBCC. Over two thousand stanzas were written for the 1590 Faerie Queene.[30] Many see Spenser's purposeful use of archaic language as an intentional means of aligning himself with Chaucer and placing himself within a trajectory of building English national literary history.

Theological structureEdit

Florimell saved by Proteus by Walter Crane, from book III, Part VII of an 1895–1897 edition.

In Elizabethan England, no subject was more familiar to writers than theology. Elizabethans learned to embrace religious studies in petty school, where they "read from selections from the Book of Common Prayer and memorized Catechisms from the Scriptures".[31] This influence is evident in Spenser's text, as demonstrated in the moral allegory of Book I. Here, allegory is organized in the traditional arrangement of Renaissance theological treatises and confessionals. While reading Book I, audiences first encounter original sin, justification and the nature of sin before analysing the church and the sacraments.[32] Despite this pattern, Book I is not a theological treatise; within the text, "moral and historical allegories intermingle" and the reader encounters elements of romance.[33] However, Spenser's method is not "a rigorous and unyielding allegory," but "a compromise among conflicting elements".[33] In Book I of The Faerie Queene the discussion of the path to salvation begins with original sin and justification, skipping past initial matters of God, the Creeds, and Adam's fall from grace.[33] This literary decision is pivotal because these doctrines "center the fundamental theological controversies of the Reformation".[33]


Myth and historyEdit

During The Faerie Queene's inception, Spenser worked as a civil servant, in "relative seclusion from the political and literary events of his day".[34] As Spenser laboured in solitude, The Faerie Queene manifested within his mind, blending his experiences into the content of his craft. Within his poem, Spenser explores human consciousness and conflict, relating to a variety of genres including sixteenth century Arthurian literature.[35] The Faerie Queene was influenced strongly by Italian works, as were many other works in England at that time. The Faerie Queene draws heavily on Ariosto and Tasso.[36]

The first three books of The Faerie Queene operate as a unit, representing the entire cycle from the fall of Troy to the reign of Elizabeth.[35] Using in medias res, Spenser introduces his historical narrative at three different intervals, using chronicle, civil conversation, and prophecy as its occasions.[35]


Spenser's characters embody Elizabethan values, highlighting political and aesthetic associations of Tudor Arthurian tradition in order to bring his work to life. While Spenser respected British history and "contemporary culture confirmed his attitude",[37] his literary freedom demonstrates that he was "working in the realm of mythopoeic imagination rather than that of historical fact".[37] In fact, Spenser's Arthurian material serves as a subject of debate, intermediate between "legendary history and historical myth" offering him a range of "evocative tradition and freedom that historian's responsibilities preclude".[38] Concurrently, Spenser adopts the role of a sceptic, reflected in the way in which he handles the British history, which "extends to the verge of self-satire".[39]

Medieval subject matterEdit

The Faerie Queene owes, in part, its central figure, Arthur, to a medieval writer, Geoffrey of Monmouth. In his Prophetiae Merlini ("Prophecies of Merlin"), Geoffrey's Merlin proclaims that the Saxons will rule over the Britons until the "Boar of Cornwall" (Arthur) again restores them to their rightful place as rulers.[40] The prophecy was adopted by the Welsh and eventually used by the Tudors. Through their ancestor, Owen Tudor, the Tudors had Welsh blood, through which they claimed to be descendants of Arthur and rightful rulers of Britain.[41] The tradition begun by Geoffrey of Monmouth set the perfect atmosphere for Spenser's choice of Arthur as the central figure and natural bridegroom of Gloriana.



Since its inception four centuries ago, Spenser's diction has been scrutinized by scholars. Despite the enthusiasm the poet and his work received, Spenser's experimental diction was "largely condemned" before it received the acclaim it has today.[42] Seventeenth-century philologists such as Davenant considered Spenser's use of "obsolete language" as the "most vulgar accusation that is laid to his charge".[43] Scholars have recently observed that the classical tradition tucked within The Faerie Queene is related to the problem of his diction because it "involves the principles of imitation and decorum".[44] Despite these initial criticisms, Spenser is "now recognized as a conscious literary artist" and his language is deemed "the only fitting vehicle for his tone of thought and feelings".[44] Spenser's use of language was widely contrasted to that of "free and unregulated" sixteenth-century Shakespearian grammar.[45] Spenser's style is standardized, lyrically sophisticated, and full of archaisms that give the poem an original taste. Sugden argues in The Grammar of Spenser's Faerie Queene that the archaisms reside "chiefly in vocabulary, to a high degree in spelling, to some extent in the inflexions, and only slightly in the syntax".[45]




Spenser's language in The Faerie Queene, as in The Shepheardes Calender, is deliberately archaic, though the extent of this has been exaggerated by critics who follow Ben Jonson's dictum, that "in affecting the ancients Spenser writ no language."[49] Allowing that Jonson's remark may only apply to the Calendar, Bruce Robert McElderry Jr. states, after a detailed investigation of the FQ's diction, that Jonson's statement "is a skillful epigram; but it seriously misrepresents the truth if taken at anything like its face value".[50] The number of archaisms used in the poem is not overwhelming—one source reports thirty-four in Canto I of Book I, that is, thirty-four words out of a total forty-two hundred words, less than one percent.[51] According to McElderry, language does not account for the poem's archaic tone: "The subject-matter of The Faerie Queene is itself the most powerful factor in creating the impression of archaism."[52]

Examples of medieval archaisms (in morphology and diction) include:

  • Infinitive in -en: vewen 1. 201, 'to view';
  • Prefix y- retained in participle: yclad, 1. 58, 254, 'clad, clothed';
  • Adjective: combrous, 1. 203, 'harassing, troublesome';
  • Verb: keepe, 1. 360, 'heed, give attention to'.[51]

Adaptation and derivative worksEdit

Numerous adaptations in the form of children's literature have been made – the work was a popular choice in the 19th and early 20th century with over 20 different versions written, with the earliest being E. W. Bradburn's Legends from Spencer's Fairy Queen, for Children (1829), written in the form of a dialogue between mother and children – the 19th-century versions oft concentrated on the moral aspect of the tale.[53] In terms of the English-speaking world adaptions of the work were relatively more popular in the United Kingdom than in the United States compared to contemporary works like Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, presumably due to the differences in appeal of the intended audiences (Royal court vs Ordinary people) and their relative appeal to the general American readership.[54]

The Edwardian era was particularly rich in adaptation for children, and the works richly illustrated, with contributing artists including A. G. Walker, Gertrude Demain Hammond, T. H. Robinson, Frank C. Papé, Brinsley Le Fanu and H. J. Ford.[54] Additionally, Walter Crane illustrated a six-volume collection of the complete work, published 1897, considered a great example of the Arts and Crafts movement.[55][56]

In "The Mathematics of Magic", the second of Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp's Harold Shea stories, the modern American adventurers Harold Shea and Reed Chalmers visit the world of The Faerie Queene, where they discover that the greater difficulties faced by Spenser's knights in the later portions of the poem are explained by the evil enchanters of the piece having organized a guild to more effectively oppose them. Shea and Chalmers reveal this conspiracy to the knights and assist in its overthrow. In the process, Belphebe and Florimel of Faerie become respectively the wives of Shea and Chalmers and accompany them on further adventures in other worlds of myth and fantasy.

A considerable part of Elizabeth Bear's "Promethean Age" series [57] takes place in a Kingdom of Faerie which is loosely based on the one described by Spenser. As depicted by Bear, Spenser was aware of this Kingdom's existence and his work was actually a description of fact rather than invented fantasy; Queen Elizabeth I had a secret pact of mutual help with the Queen of Faerie; and such historical characters as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare visited Faerie and had adventures there.

According to Richard Simon Keller, George Lucas's Star Wars film also contains elements of a loose adaptation, as well as being influenced by other works, with parallels including the story of the Red Cross Knight championing Una against the evil Archimago in the original compared with Lucas's Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader. Keller sees extensive parallels between the film and book one of Spenser's work, stating "[A]lmost everything of importance that we see in the Star Wars movie has its origin in The Faerie Queene, from small details of weaponry and dress to large issues of chivalry and spirituality".[58]

References in popular cultureEdit

The Netflix series The Crown references The Faerie Queene and Gloriana in season 1 episode 10, entitled "Gloriana". In the final scene, Queen Elizabeth II, portrayed by Claire Foy, is being photographed. Prompting Her Majesty's poses, Cecil Beaton says:

"All hail sage Lady, whom a grateful Isle hath blessed."[59] Not moving, not breathing. Our very own goddess. Glorious Gloriana. Forgetting Elizabeth Windsor now. Now only Elizabeth Regina. Yes.[60]

Near the end of the 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, Colonel Brandon reads The Faerie Queene aloud to Marianne Dashwood.

Quotes from the poem are used as epigraphs in Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith, a pen name of J.K. Rowling.

See alsoEdit


  1. ^ Wilkinson, Hazel. Edmund Spenser and the Eighteenth-Century Book. Cambridge University Press. p. 9. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
  2. ^ Loewenstein & Mueller 2003, p. 369.
  3. ^ Spenser 1984, pp. 15–16.
  4. ^ Kaske, Carol V., ed. (2006). Spenser's The Faerie Queene Book One. Indianapolis: Hackett. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-87220-808-7.
  5. ^ Roche 1984, p. 11.
  7. ^ Tuve 1966.
  8. ^ Greenblatt 2006, p. 687.
  9. ^ McCabe 2010, p. 41.
  10. ^ Heale 1999, p. 8.
  11. ^ McCabe 2010, p. 39.
  12. ^ Abrams 2000, p. 623.
  13. ^ McCabe, Richard (Spring 1987). "The Masks of Duessa: Spenser, Mary Queen of Scots, and James VI". English Literary Renaissance. 17 (2): 224–242. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6757.1987.tb00934.x – via JSTOR.
  14. ^ a b c d e f Gottfried 1968, p. 1363.
  15. ^ a b c d e Greenblatt 2012, p. 775.
  16. ^ a b McCabe 2010, p. 48.
  17. ^ a b c d Heale 1999, p. 11.
  18. ^ Marotti 1965, p. 69.
  19. ^ Micros 2008.
  20. ^ a b c Spenser 1984, p. 15.
  21. ^ McCabe 2010, p. 50.
  22. ^ McCabe 2010, p. 273.
  24. ^ Oram, William A. (2003). "Spenser's Audiences, 1589–91". Studies in Philology. 100 (4): 514–533. doi:10.1353/sip.2003.0019. JSTOR 4174771.
  25. ^ McCabe 2010, p. 112.
  26. ^ McCabe 2010, p. 24.
  27. ^ a b c d e Green 1974, p. 389.
  28. ^ a b c Green 1974, p. 390.
  29. ^ a b c Green 1974, p. 392.
  30. ^ a b McCabe 2010, p. 213.
  31. ^ Whitaker 1952, p. 151.
  32. ^ Whitaker 1952, p. 153.
  33. ^ a b c d Whitaker 1952, p. 154.
  34. ^ Craig 1972, p. 520.
  35. ^ a b c Craig 1972, p. 522.
  36. ^ Heale 1999, p. 95.
  37. ^ a b c Craig 1972, p. 523.
  38. ^ Craig 1972, p. 524.
  39. ^ Craig 1972, p. 555.
  40. ^ Geoffrey of Monmouth.
  41. ^ Millican 1932.
  42. ^ Pope 1926, p. 575.
  43. ^ Pope 1926, p. 576.
  44. ^ a b Pope 1926, p. 580.
  45. ^ a b Cumming 1937, p. 6.
  46. ^ Turnage 1970, p. 567.
  47. ^ Draper 1932, p. 97.
  48. ^ Cañadas 2007, p. 386.
  49. ^ McElderry 1932, p. 144.
  50. ^ McElderry 1932, p. 170.
  51. ^ a b Parker 1925, p. 85.
  52. ^ McElderry 1932, p. 159.
  57. ^ Monette, Sarah. "An Interview with Elizabeth Bear, conducted by Sarah Monette". Subterranean Press. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
  59. ^ William Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, XXXVIII.


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External linksEdit

Online editionsEdit