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Professor Ellis
ENGL 410
5 December 2022
The Allegory, Romance, and Complicated Moral Play of The Faerie Queene
The definition of an allegory is, in simple terms, a story (or a fable, depending on how it is constructed) wherein abstract ideas are represented through the form of characters or other events, typically in a narrative or semi-narrative fashion. Allegories are often used in order to convey some sort of moral instruction to their audience (usually a reader). During the time of the Renaissance, theories surrounding literature often focused on the idea that works should both instruct and delight their audience; also known as the Horatian platitude or Horatian formula, this idea posits that literature should be both morally sound and instructive as well as pleasing to the reader. According to this model, then, literature can teach because it delights, holding its reader’s attention and instilling in them emotional responses to invest them in para-social (or one-sided) relationships with the narrative’s inhabitants, taking advantage of humanity’s nature as social creatures and leading them to care about the messages the work is attempting to convey where they would otherwise think them too dry and instructional. The Faerie Queene, perhaps the most notable work by Edmund Spenser, is no stranger to the concept of allegory, being one itself, and is certainly not foreign to the idea of both instructing and delighting its audience at once; as a work comprised of many cantos of poetry it forgoes what we might consider traditional plot conventions or stylings in the aim of instructing the reader as to a preordained proper “code of conduct”, while also padding out its various cantos with familiar Renaissance-era romantic language that might imply otherwise. Each “episode”, or conflict, undeniably has some sort of moral aim in mind, alongside its innate desire to be a piece of great English literature. That said, however, The Faerie Queene is also a work of romance fiction, and as such it implements a lot of romantic language and roundabout, poetic descriptions that might in the process serve to obfuscate its messaging and effectively work against its own primary directive, which is first and foremost to deliver that moral message and to instill the predominant Christian (and perhaps more specifically Elizabethan) moral virtues of the era in its audience. The objective of this essay, then, will be to analyze the romantic and the allegorical elements of a particular episode, that being Sir Guyon’s battle with Pyrochles in Book II, as well as how effective its lessons/status as a teacher are and whether the reader might be able to extrapolate conflicting or unintentional moral instruction through or surrounding the romantic-level construction of the work.
Knowing about the author of the text itself provides valuable insight into both the complexities of the narrative itself as well as the reasoning behind its moral aim. Edmund Spenser was born in London, around 1552 or 1553; his actual date of birth is unknown, though it is known that he attended the Merchant Taylors’ School. His notable works include Amoretti and The Faerie Queene, both works of epic narrative poetry, the medium he tended to work with. The Faerie Queene proper finds itself heavily absorbed in Elizabethan virtues and by proxy praise of Queen Elizabeth I herself, whom the work itself was written for. These ideas of Elizabethan praise so permeate the poems that the character of the Faerie Queen herself, Gloriana, is a stand-in for the English monarch; evidently Spenser had an adoration for the queen, which might also resonate in the language he chooses to use to express the value of Elizabethan moral virtues, a telling indicator of what is in essence a great admiration and respect, and even love, for his monarch. Indeed, his prefatory letter to Sir Walter Raleigh proves proof of this; in it, Spenser declares his intent to not only have the story serve as a morally instructive guide to its readers but also for it to extoll praise for the then-queen Elizabeth I: “I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery Land.” (Spenser, Prefatory Letter). Of all the books that comprise The Faerie Queene, Book II is perhaps the most transparent about its moral play, at least because of the virtue it chooses to focus itself around; the virtue of Temperance, itself often associated with notions of abstinence and purity.
Book II is often overlooked in favour of other books, though the work in its entirety often tends not to be a subject of close study in the contemporary age; the work has long lost most of its audience in favour of the more popular and long-lasting works in the English canon. As essayist Madelon S. Golhke writes, “[a]part from professional literary critics, contemporary readers have little taste for allegory and even less for the allegory of Temperance.” (123). Temperance is not a virtue we often tend to give much thought nowadays, what with our society of often lavish excess, driven by consumption and indulgence; as a result, Sir Guyon comes across as “cold, smug, [and] puritanical.”, and “as a hero, he remains lifeless and the allegory at best mechanical.” (Golhke 124). It is evident that the work’s attempt at moral play no longer holds water in the modern day, as Temperance is considered quite the antediluvian quality, associated with the late-16th-and-early-17th century puritanism that is so frowned upon nowadays. Book II as a whole, however, is not necessarily as banal as many seem to make it out to be because of its focal virtue of choice; Golhke acknowledges this, too, stating that perhaps “Guyon is not as passionless as he seems” (124), despite his obvious status as a personification of Temperance; in fact, his words and his actions often seem to be at odds, and the things he does often seem to lean towards a destructive end rather than an abstinent and resigned “temperate” one — which makes sense, when one considers that temperance does not necessarily mean one abstains from feeling pleasure or happiness in their life, just that they refrain from excess and do not overindulge themselves in things, good or bad.
Take, for example, perhaps the episode with some of the most overtly destructive overtones in Guyon’s adventures; his battle with Pyrochles, and the events surrounding it. The bulk of the episode comprises cantos 4 through 6, with the first half following the fight between Sir Guyon and Pyrochles and the last half dealing with its aftermath; it continues, in a way, all the way into canto 8, where Pyrochles finally meets his end — not by Guyon, but by Arthur, and after a great deal of suffering brought on almost entirely by his unrestrained wrath, the vice that the story is attempting to warn its reader against. On an allegorical level, Pyrochles is lost in his wrath, which translates into the narrative when he is wounded by Furor and set on fire; he is literally consumed by the flames of his own wrath, as he is the one who asked that Guyon set Furor free, and despite repenting and begging for his life he is unable to let go of it. Romantically, this is all padded out by the fantastical elements, which themselves go hand in hand with the allegorical ones. Of particular note is the sheer status of Sir Guyon as a knight-errant on a quest as is a typical staple of the genre (the story would not exist without its knights), as well as the presence of personified abstracts like Furor, Occasion and even the Palmer, who are constructs meant to represent not concrete people (like Gloriana represents Elizabeth I) or otherwise tangible things but instead philosophical concepts like the cardinal vices, or the inner workings of mankind’s psyche, albeit in an early and far more rudimentary form than today.
The romantic aspect of The Faerie Queene’s writing is always evident through how Spenser chooses to write his work; he is very clearly following that concept of “delighting” his reader through both the poem format and the narrative descriptions. Take, for example, these lines: “And round about him threw forth sparkling fire, / That seemd him to enflame on euery side: / His steed was bloudy red, and fomed ire, / When with the maistring spur he did him roughly stire.” (Spenser, The Faerie Queene 5.15-18), clearly evocative of the fiery image of wrath used in the allegory while their rhythm and rhyme draws in and essentially “enthralls” the audience. Worth being expanded upon here is the objective content of this episode; in it, Sir Guyon is confronted by the wrathful Pyrochles, an incredibly aggressive and powerful knight. Pyrochles is fierce, but Guyon is clever and outwits him, taking advantage of his enemy’s rage but ashamed of his own during the battle: “Exceeding wroth was Guyon at that blow, / And much ashamd, that stroke of liuing arme / Should him dismay, and make him stoup so low” (5.56-58). Besting his foe, Guyon is close to slaying his enemy (whose name invokes the image of fire, using the Latin word “pyro”), and only chooses not to when the latter repents. Pyrochles’ defeat proper highlights his lack of temperance and how that deficit can oftentimes lead one to death or at least near it, and that the temperate will always prevail over the overtly wrathful in the end, as temperance begets intelligence. It is only Pyrochles’ supposed repentance (false as it turns out to be) that saves him — a clear analogue to the Christian idea that sin, which would otherwise damn a soul, can be absolved via repentance and conversion to the faith. However, Pyrochles is soon after wounded by Furor, whom Guyon has chosen to set free at Pyrochles’ behest (perhaps an indicator that Guyon’s temperance has faltered momentarily, as he hints at during the fight; though both Furor and Occasion have proven troublesome for him in the past he frees them nonetheless), further cementing the idea that wrath is ultimately self-destructive. Of note surrounding this scenario is the idea introduced by Protestant reformers like Martin Luther, the forefather of the movement, of predestination — which would hold that God has chosen from the beginning of eternity who he is going to save, regardless of their personal dedication to the faith or their degree of repentance. Edmund Spenser himself was fiercely devoted to and a fierce defender of Queen Elizabeth I, herself a devout Protestant. The Faerie Queene herself, after all, is a stand-in for Elizabeth I, who on her part was the one to re-establish Protestantism in England. Applied to the conflict between Guyon and Pyrochles, this would seem to imply that Pyrochles’ false repentance and then ultimate refusal to give up evil, resulting in his death at Arthur’s hands, was predestined — he was always bound to remain cursed with his anger and die, which would thus imply that the theoretical God figure of the text would have already chosen him to be damned, regardless of whether or not he would have ever repented. The chivalric-romantic fascination with the daring deeds of knights and the quests on which they embark may contribute to the muddling of these metaphors, with Spenser being so sufficiently carried away with writing a tale that will delight his audience that he ends up neglecting to consider all the minutiae of the moral implications long enough that they fail to hold up under scrutiny that is too intense; but more likely, it is the Protestantism the work is steeped in that causes it to falter. Pyrochles is descended from gods, and as a result he holds an incredible power; he was born with it, and it seems to be what has doomed him to an early grave, instilling in him a rage that can never be quelled. The circumstances of his birth are such that he would have always been what he is, perhaps much like a royal-born person or someone who is otherwise born into a high-ranking place would almost always have that privilege, unless something came along to topple their empire.
Indeed, these characters are trapped within their narrative framework, predestined to do what they will and be what they are, not unlike the Protestant idea of predestination. This might serve to further complicate the moral allegory the work is going for, because while Pyrochles is a clear metaphor for wrath, and for the dangers of allowing it to take control of oneself, his fate is sealed from the moment he arrives on the scene. What he does is truly irrelevant, since he is already fit to die. From the beginning, he was never going to turn from his evil ways; ultimately, nothing will save him from his own wrath nor the death it leads him to. Translating this into our tangible realm, one must wonder what, exactly, a theoretical reader would think to gain, if they thought this hard about this seam of the work — what is the problem with allowing one’s wrath to get out of hand, if God has already made up his mind on their fate since eternity? Why should the reader, who should presumably be extrapolating positive moral virtues from this encounter, be learning to temper and control their wrath and more generally abide by the rules of temperance — if they apparently lack free will, whether they turn away from wrathfulness or not is a moot point, since weren’t their moral character and the outcome already determined anyway?
In the end, I believe what obfuscates the moral lesson of this episode has less to do with its use of chivalric romance elements as a device to deliver these lessons to the audience and its status as an allegory proper, and more to do with the culture surrounding the allegory, especially considering how important religion was and continues to be in the foundations of society and in our readings of certain works. Given Christianity’s grand influence over much of the world, even today, it is not particularly out there to read the work via the lens of Protestantism, since its author was a devout Protestant and a devotee of the Protestant-revivalist Queen Elizabeth I; given that she essentially appears in the work itself, and that it is an allegory from a Protestant, in return that seems to make the work a less effective teacher especially in the case of this episode as the basic Protestant idea of predestination means that it is tough for a theoretical reader interpreting it this way to gain much from it, as their actions and the actions of the characters in the narrative have already been chosen for them as has the fate of their eternal soul. There are many good foundations within The Faerie Queene, and much of the episode itself seems to hold good lessons for its audience as to the dangers of one’s unchecked wrath, but although such an interpretation may be unintended on the part of the author regardless the historical context it is steeped in leaves it in a vulnerable position when it comes to trying to accomplish its goal.
Works Cited
Gohlke, Madelon S. “Embattled Allegory: Book II of The Faerie Queene.” English Literary Renaissance, vol. 8, no. 2, 1978, pp. 123–140., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6757.1978.tb01389.x.
Spenser, Edmund. “Prefatory Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh On The Faerie Queene.” Prefatory Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh on the Faerie Queene. Edmund Spenser (1589). 1909-14. Famous Prefaces. the Harvard Classics, https://www.bartleby.com/39/14.html.
---. “THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QVEENE. .” The Faerie Queene: Book II., University of Oregon, https://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/queene2.html.
“This HTML e-text of The Faerie Queene was prepared from The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Edmund Spenser [Grosart, London, 1882] by Risa Bear at the University of Oregon. The text is in the public domain. Unique content is copyright © 1995 University of Oregon; this text is distributed for nonprofit and educational use only.” Used within the context of this essay for ease of quotation.
“Biography.” The Edmund Spenser Home Page, https://web.archive.org/web/20120102013123/http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenser/biography.htm.
“Adapted from Willy Maley, A Spenser Chronology.”
Hamilton, Albert C. The Spenser Encyclopedia. University of Toronto Press, 1990.
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