Professor Leah Whittington
Paper #2: Term Paper, The Faerie Queene
By Bledar Blake Zenuni,
December 11, 2013
Spenserian Protestantism and the
Renaissance:
Heroism in The Faerie Queene
Religious Elements in Spenser’s Ontology of
Christian Heroism in Books V and VI
English 90lw: Spenser’s Faerie
Queene and the Renaissance Imagination
Harvard University, Fall 2013
Table of Contents
I. The English
Protestant of the Renaissance: Heroism in The
Faerie Queen ................................ 5
II. Oh How Unlike the Place From Whence They
Fell!: Book V .................................................... 7
III. Passing the Torch: Book VI........................................................................................................ 10
IV. Conclusion: The Christian Heroism of Books V and VI.......................................................... 12
Appendix: References and
FurtherReading..................................................................................... 14
Acknowledgements
· My professor, Leah Whittington, who
answered all of my queries patiently and who showed me the joy of reading
Edmund Spenser for one’s soul and mind.
· My classmates in English 90lw, who
provided critical insight during discussions and who helped me learn how be a
better thinker.
“Both
read the bible day and night,
but
thou read’st black where I read white”
— William
Blake, The Everlasting Gospel,
Sec.
4, Verse 13-14, 181
—William
Blake, “Portrait of Edmund Spenser”, ca. 1800-1803.
I. The
English Protestant of the Renaissance: Heroism in The Faerie Queen
Published
for the first time in 1596, the second half of The Faerie Queene employs certain details of narrative structure already
noted in Books I and II, creating a sense of continuity and pedagogy throughout
Spenser’s “endlesse worke”. For example, Spenser introduces the motif of a
quest, assigned by the Faerie Queene, in the first canto of Book V: Arthegall
must rescue the lady Eirena from Grantorto and recover her heritage, just as
Redcrosse must slay the dragon of sin and rescue Una’s homeland.[1] In
Book VI, a transition from Book V is made by bringing Arthegall together with
Calidore in stanza 4 of the first canto. For Spenser, the retention of
narrative and structure from the first half of The Faerie Queene function to uphold the didactic aim of his work’s
intent: “the general end therefore of all the booke,” he wrote to Sir Walter
Raleigh sometime earlier in 1590, “is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in
virtuous and gentle discipline. His work, Spenser explains, is “coloured with an
historicall fiction,” because that is what will enthrall, entertain, and,
ultimately, help educate his audience—probably only the nobility in the
Elizabethan court but ideally all of Gloriana’s subjects.[2] As
works of fiction, enriched through its poetry, Books V and VI are meant to both
entertain readers—by its fantastical characters and its aesthetic poetry—and
serve as a means to educate. In Books V and VI, then, one is yet again confronted
with Spenser’s concept of “fashioning a gentleman”. Although this still raises difficult
political and moral questions, (as does the question ‘what does it mean to be a
nobleman?’), it asks one to consider what can be learned through poetry. One
such consideration is the challenging and important idea of “heroism” as
emblematic of Arthegall and Calidore, the chief protagonists of Books V and VI
respectively. Specifically, one wonders what does it mean for Arthegall and
Calidore to be “heroes” and how, if at all, is that influenced by Spenser’s
religious affiliation?
It
is difficult to preciously pinpoint Spenser’s exact religious affiliation, and,
without any of Spenser’s own theological writings, one is left with only a few
of Spenser’s poems and The Faerie Queene
as evidence of doctrinal clues. Nonetheless, most critics agree that there is
no doubt that Spenser favored a spiritual order—a subscribed system of various
institutional forms can take in society—that was specifically Protestant.[3] As
an English Protestant of the Renaissance, Spenser was committed to the
separation of the English Church from the Roman Catholic Church, conditioning
the religious aspects of Books V and VI of The
Faerie Queen on the nature of the Elizabethan Church itself. One way in
which religious elements manifest themselves in Books V and VI is Spenser’s
ontology of heroism. Heroism in Books V and VI takes on a distinct form, in
that it is a Christian heroism,
aspiring to create an ideal figure in a time of renaissance by fusing a code of
Elizabethan justice and a code of courtesy found in the most benevolent of knights.
To take the most obvious allegorical examples, Book V is dedicated to the
Knight of Justice, or Arthegall, a sort of Christian Everyman delegated with
the unenviable task of implementing such a strict form of justice, that it is
comparable only to that found in Revelations Book VI is dedicated to the Knight
of Courtesy, or Calidore, who is keen on forgiveness and mercy at every turn,
but only after instructing those he pardons on the proper exhibition of
courtesy. In Books V and VI, Spenser’s unique Protestantism influences the
behavior of the two knights, for it is through a religious invocation that
Arthegall is able to subdue both the giant and Grantorto, and Calidore is able
to break free from his heedless idleness in the pastoral countryside so that he
can fulfill his quest and defeat the Blatant Beast. Spenser’s unique protestant
religious elements reveal the heroism of Arthegall and Calidore, but in
startling different ways In Book V, the poet reasons that Arthegal, as a good
Christian Everyman, has been delegated by the divine to enforce strict justice
tempered with proportionate equity, ultimately marking him worthy of being heroic within the Elizabethan societal
framework of law and order. In Book VI, Arthegal effectively passes the torch
to Calidore, whose religious invocation leads him down a path of courtesy and
mercy, marking him a popular and welcome hero reminiscent of a pre-Elizabethan
chivalric age.
Word Count: 998
[1] For further reference on narrative and structure in The Faerie Queene, See Richard, Spenser and the Discourses of Reformation.
1997, p. 15.
[2] Spenser, Edmund, A. C. Hamilton, Hiroshi Yamashita, and
Toshiyuki Suzuki. The Faerie Qveene. "Letter to Sir Walter
Raleigh”, pp. 713-718.
[3] Original idea attributed to McEachern, Spenser and Religion, pp. 30-48.
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