The Faerie Queene

This question links "painter-poet" to Edmund Spenser, basically asking if Spenser is adept at using imagery—for a painter-poet would be best suited to write in such a way that his descriptions...

Many scholars recognize two dominant categories of allegory in Spenser's work: (1) moral and religious allegory; (2) historical and national allegory. "Political" is a term that might be...

The Spenserian Stanza consists of nine lines (eight lines of iambic pentameter followed by a single alexandrine) and a rhyme scheme of abbabbcbcc. As seen in the opening stanza of The Faerie Queen,...

In the epic tale 'The Faerie Queene' by Edmund Spenser the knight in the story gets the name 'Redcross' gets his name from a cross the colour of blood painted onto his shield. Redcross has been...

As a conceit can be defined as an elaborate metaphor, and Spenser claimed "dark conceit" to be a synonym of "continued allegory," he uses the term to define the nature of his book as an allegory....

In book I, canto I, stanza XVII of The Faerie Queene, the knight Redcrosse has just entered the den of the monster, Error. Although this is not his quest, and he has stumbled upon the monster by...

(continued from previous post) Now, Everyman does not have the pleasure of being shown the future or his place in the New Jerusalem. Everyman has to accept that on faith, though he is not alone in...

If you can follow the action, amid all of Spenser's poetic and archaic language, the adventures of Red Cross and Una are exciting. While so much of the poem is an allegory (that is, a character,...

The House of Holiness is described in book 1, canto 10, of The Faerie Queene and is a complete contrast to the Cave of Despair in the previous canto, as well as a strong symbolic opposite to the...

"Old father Nilus" refers to the Nile River in Egypt (Aegyptus). The river floods every year and deposits rich soil on the land ("the fertile slime outwell). Likewise, when the...

The most significant woman mentioned is Gloriana, the Faerie Queene herself. Gloriana is a thinly veiled stand-in for Queen Elizabeth I. She is presented as powerful and beautiful—or at least, the...

In Book I, stanza 36 specifically refers to sleep. "The sad humour loading the eye liddes" (The Literature of Renaissance England 179) does not mean that Red Cross and the Lady are sad or weeping,...

Edmund Spenser was very much a Christian humanist. This meant that, despite his Christianity, he still found much that was valuable in the writings of pagans from Greek and Roman antiquity....

When Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene, he faced an enormous challenge. He wrote in the language of Geoffrey Chaucer, as a compliment not only to this other author, but also to the era of...

Edmund Spenser's epic poem, The Faerie Queene, is largely a symbolic tale, dedicated to Elizabeth I. Spenser needed a patron to provide for his support while he worked, and patrons expect that the...

Like most great poems, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is less important for its meaning than for its artistry. One key aspect of the artistry of any poem involves the poem’s sound effects and...

The first step in writing about Spenser's dark conceit is to define it. This may be a harder task than it seems. Spenser appears the originator, or the first user in print, of the term "dark...

The meter of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen is mostly iambic pentameter. That means each line contains a total of ten syllables. Those ten syllables are broken up into five different chunks...

Edmund Spenser began his career as a poet in imitation of Virgil. In 1579, he published the Shepheardes Calendar, a collection of pastoral poems emulating Virgil's Eclogues. In his masterpiece, the...

In book 2, canto 12, stanza 57, Spenser writes: And them amongst, some were of burnish'd Gold,So made by Art, to beautify the rest,Which did themselves emongst the Leaves enfold,As lurking from...

The first book and first canto of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene set the scene and begin the adventures of the Knight of the Red Crosse and the Lady. The Queen of Faerie, Gloriana, has given...

The subject matter of the epic poem The Faerie Queen, by Edmund Spenser, stems largely from Arthurian legends, so we can take some of our cues from there when we look for insight into what...

There are many religious details and references connected specifically with the description of Red Crosse's attire in this section. He bares the cross of his Lord upon his breast and on his shield,...

Despite its name, the Bower of Bliss is not actually blissful. On the contrary, it's a place of evil, of strange enchantment, presided over by a wicked witch called Acrasia. Her name comes from a...

Book I of the Faerie Queentakes the reader on the epic adventures of the Red Crosse Knight. Spenser once said of this knight the following: "The first of the knight of the Redcrosse, in whome I...

Edmund Spenser invented the Spenserian stanza for his allegorical epic poem The Faerie Queene. The rhyme scheme of the this nine-line stanza is ababbcbcc. The meter is iambic pentameter, except for...

There are many examples of the blending of classical/"pagan" literary and cultural references with Christian/Biblical ones in The Faerie Queene, particularly in Book I. In fact this book is often...

This excerpt comes from Canto XI, which reads, "Eftsoones that dreadful Dragon they espide, /Where stretcht he lay upon the sunny side,/Of a great hill, himselfe like a great hill." Spencer's verse...

In Book I, Canto IX of The Faerie Queene, Una snatches the knife from the Redcrosse Knight's hand when he is about to kill himself in the Cave of Despair. Earlier in the poem, the Redcrosse Knight...

The Red Cross Knight's dream in Canto I, XLVI-LV, is unusual in that it is the deliberate handicraft of Morpheus, requested by the Knight's enemy, Archimago, and delivered to the Knight by the...

The eNotes "Character" section on Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene defines exactly what each character represents. The Red Cross Knight (or Redcrosse) represents Saint George and "the Christian...

The dominant Protestant theme in Book I is Holiness. Spenser's allegory is threefold: moral, religious, and personal. Critics agree, as represented by George Wauchope, Ph.D. in the 1921...

The poetic means that English poet Edmund Spenser uses in Book III of “The Faerie Queene” to represent “a version” of love include the following: Use of Theme Spenser use the theme of Chastity or...

George Armstrong Wauchope, Ph.D. of South Carolina College explains in his introductory remarks to Book I of Spenser's text in Gutenberg Project that Book II is an allegory about "man's...

In this episode, Redcrosse is sent a dream of Duessa, who appears in the likeness of Una. Unlike Una, however, Duessa is schooled in the arts of illusion, and seeks with 'false shewes [to] abuse...

Britomart's decision to become a knight is linked to her love of Artegall, a noble knight she first sees in an enchanted mirror. A pure and virtuous young woman unaccustomed to love, Britomart is...

The Harrowing of Hell refers to Jesus Christ's descent into the underworld to proclaim the Gospel to those souls who lived before his Incarnation, some of whom are freed and taken by Christ to...

It seems that Spenser is not necessarily trying to redeem women in this chapter, or even defend them. Instead, he is encouraging a specific type of femininity. Specifically, he celebrates chaste...

One of the most significant depictions of physical suffering in The Faerie Queene is accompanied by a narrative promoting healing. The character of Aescalpius is compelled to help suffering people...

In this quotation, the day is described as "joyous" which is an emotion which a day does not have. This description gives a human characteristic to the day which makes this personification. The...

Spenserian temperance is based on the assumption that man is destined to become perfect. The Christian principles he uses lead him to believe that perfection of man is as inevitable as the...

I would have to say that the answer to your question will vary from reader to reader. Many may find the text to imaginative and superficial. Others, like myself, love the imagery he provides.

For me it is definitely the allegorical nature of the poem. Nobody did allegory like Spenser, with every character representing something else, and almost every action or plot twist having a...

Edmund Spenser, a 16th century English poet, published the first three books of The Faerie Queen in 1590. From the onset, this work was a profound tribute to the Queen of England, the nation...