Spenser’s The Faerie Queene

Form: verse epic/romance

Summary: The Knights of the Faerie Queene, embodying virtues such as Holiness, Temperance, and

Chastity, pursue their quests, opposed by allegorical monsters and aided at crucial moments by Prince

Arthur.

Organization: The unfinished poem consists of 6 books, each composed of 12 cantos, which are in turn

composed of varying numbers of 9 line stanzas. Each canto is headed by a quatrain summarizing the

action.

Themes: The career of the soul, conflicts between Protestantism and Catholicism; the reign of Elizabeth

I; Ireland, gender and sex, identity and disguise.

Key passages:

“The generall end therefore of all the books is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in

virtuous and gentle discipline”

The monster Error’s “vomit full of books and paper was / With loathly frogs and toades, which

eyes did lacke” 1.1.20

“An ages Sire, in long blacke weedes yclad…Simple in shew and yoyde of malice bad” 1.1.29

Redcrosse’s wet dream 1.1.47

The description of evil Lucifera sounds oddly like Queen Elizabeth 1.4.8

1.8.48

The temptation of Despair 1.9.47

Sir Guyon in the Bower of Bliss 2.12.83

Discussion Questions

1. How should we interpret the crowded and slightly comical scene at the beginning of Book 1?

What is the significance of the battered state of Redcrosse’s Shield? Of Una’s ass? Her lamb?

The dwarf? Are there elements of this scene that do not have an allegorical role?

2. Why is Error’s vomit full of books?

3. Why does Archimago use sexual dreams and visions to work the separation of Redcrosse and

Una? What do Redcrosse’s responses to his series of dreams and visions reveal about him?

4. To what extent is there a right reading of the poem’s allegory? To what extent is its

interpretation left up to the reader? Why are all the characters not given obvious allegorical

names like Error and Despair?

5. Is the poem as enthusiastic in its praise of Queen Elizabeth as Spenser promises in his letter to

Ralegh? What signs are there of coded criticism? How should we interpret the apparent

resemblance between Elizabeth and Lucifera?

6. What does Spenser mean when he describes Duessa’s genitals as “the shame of all her kind”

(1.8.48)? Should we understand her “kind” as women or as witches? Compare Fradubio’s

description of “her neather parts” at 1.2.41.

7. How should we interpret Guyon’s destruction of the Bower of Bliss at the end of Book 2? Does

Spenser wholly endorse the razing of an environment whose beauty he has praised in such

loving detail?

8. As the selections from Book 3 make clear, Spenserian “chastity” means both more and less than

mere sexual abstinence. How would you define it?

Helpful Websites:

Study Guide http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl331/fq.html with study questions and reading tips.