Fairy Queen :
The “poet’s poet” ( Charles Lamb) Edmund Spenser reached the apex of his art with his romantic tour de force The Faerie Queene. Considered as Spenser’s “Magnum Opus”, this poem is an allegorical romance and one of the longest English poems known for its new meter – the Spenserian Stanza . In an allegorical work, the primary meaning is clearly expressed while the secondary meaning is only suggested by subtle means. The poem symbolises the moral and spiritual journey of an individual through worldly temptations of sins towards the ultimate destination of glory and truth. Its purpose is to convey some moral and religious truth in a delightful way. In Spenser’s “Letter of the Authors”, he states that the entire epic poem is “cloudily enwrapped in Allegorical devices”, and the aim of publishing it was to “fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline”. The allegory applied by Spenser is multi-layered, blending the spiritual allegory with both religious and political or personal allegory. Along with other allegories like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress , Spenser’s masterpiece adds to the variety and the grandeur of allegorical works at large.
The Fairie Queene is primarily a spiritual and moral cum religious allegory – a collection of symbolic characters signifying vice or virtue. Good characters like Una and Redcrosse Knight represent virtues like truth and holiness respectively. Artegall symbolises justice, while King Arthur symbolises magnificence, the supreme virtue according to Aristotle which includes all virtues. On the other hand, evil characters are the symbols of the corrupt ways of Roman Catholic Church. Archimago the magician represents hypocrisy, while Duessa represents deceitfulness. Orgoglio the giant symbolises inquisition and Papal tyranny. Corceca represents senseless emphasis on rituals, ornamentation, dogma than moral integrity of Anglican faith. Corceca’s blind and deaf daughter Abessa who cannot recognise Una represents Roman Catholic Church that avoids the actual truth. Kirkrapine, the thief who plunders the church, symbolises the greedy clergymen who extract money from the common folk unnecessarily.
Spenser shows some heathen characters like Sans Loy( embodiment of lawlessness), Sans Foy ( embodiment of faithlessness) and Sans Joy ( embodiment of joyless aggression) to be friends of such negative characters as Archimago, Duessa and even Queen Lucifera. This is because the poet finds no difference in the evil practices of Paganism or Heathenism and Roman Catholicism. He wants to show that they have degraded so much that they are not genuine Christians at all. But such dogmatic bigotry may not be acceptable to many. Book 1 is the reassertion of faith in Protestant Christianity of Anglican Church. The religious allegory becomes evident in the conflict between Redcrosse Knight and the monster Error, which symbolises the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism. The books and papers vomited by Error allude to the abusive pamphlets directed against Queen Elizabeth by the Roman Catholics :
” Her vomit full of books and paper was || With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke”. Redcrosse’s victory over the dragon( symbolic of Roman Pope) at the end of Book 1 symbolises the victory of the holy and pious Anglicanism over satanism.
Under the layer of religious allegory, Spenser provides a powerful personal and political allegory, too. The queen of the Faerie Land, Gloriana embodies Queen Elizabeth 1, an ideal symbol of beauty and virtue. King Arthur represents Lord Leicester and his adoration of Queen Elizabeth is presented as Arthur’s love for the immaculate Gloriana. His battle against the Roman Catholic country Netherlands is presented as Arthur’s fight against Orgoglio. The lion who became the protector of Una is actually King Henry VIII, who reformed Christianity in England. Sir Satyran symbolises John Perrot whose contribution in controlling law and order in Ireland became legendary. Duessa embodies either or both Queen Mary Tudor and Mary the Queen of Scots. Archimago represents the Spanish king Philip II whose Armada was vanquished by the English.
Spenser is an ardent admirer of those courtiers who bravely fought for Britain, the symbol of righteousness and truth. He thought that the Irish error of judgement must be corrected by the English. Therefore the English endeavour to fight against error, evil, misjudgment and falsity is presented as the conquests of Redcrosse, Arthur and Sir Satyrane. He considered the contribution of sailors and naval officers like Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh who sacrificed their aristocratic life to search for new lands in unknown seas. Satyrane, Arthur and Redcrosse fighting against the Pagan characters , therefore, signify the perils faced by these explorers.
The allegorical mould of this work suited both to the spirit of the age and his natural bent of mind – both meditative and imaginative. But as a pure allegory, the poem is defective. He lacks a central idea and instead of unity he has complications. His characters confusedly represent many diverse attributes at the same time. For example, His King Arthur is the symbol of magnificence and divine grace and also suggests Leicester, Elizabeth’s favourite. The allegorical story is thus both moral and political and that is its defect. Too many digressions, add further to the confusion of the readers. They may add variety to the epic but they make the action loose and the story meaningless. So the didactic purpose of the book is not achieved. But the poem is remarkable for Spenser’s poetic art, music of language and the wonderful sensuous pictures of beauty that abound in his epic.
