Faerie Queene Analysis

ANALYSIS

Canto 1

Redcrosse represents Holiness, while Una represents Truth. Specifically, Una represents the truth of Protestantism against that of Roman Catholicism, which Errour represents. When Errour spews forth her lies upon Redcrosse Knight, Catholic tracts and papal injunctions are among the papers that make up her vomit. Redcrosse can only achieve victory over Errour by holding to the true faith, Protestant Christianity. In this way, holiness triumphs over falsehood.

Canto 2

Archimago means “arch-image,” a name that reflects his use of deceitful appearances to work his evil. Having already failed to diminish Redcrosse’s virtue through the false Una (something which seems like the truth, but is not), he has more success with the false image of Una’s unfaithfulness. Redcrosse has a much harder time quelling his doubts about Una’s fidelity, leading to his flight into the forest and his encounter with Sansfoy. Sansfoy means “faithlessness,” and here represents Redcrosse’s own faithlessness to Una (his refusal to believe the best of her) as well as his struggle with her seeming faithlessness to him. Sansfoy is accompanied by the anti-Una, Duessa, whose name means “duplicity.” Where Una is chaste and true, Duessa is lascivious and false. Her claiming the name Fidessa (“fidelity”) is ironic in several ways. First, she is a liar, and hardly faithful; second, she offers herself as a reward for Redcrosse’s lack of fidelity to Una; and third, she is already being unfaithful to Redcrosse in lying to him, whereas the woman she imitates, Una, has been true to her virtue despite Redcrosse’s misgivings.

While Una represents the truth of the Protestant Church, Duessa represents the false theology of the Catholic Church. When Redcrosse embraces Duessa in the forest, he is showing how holiness can fall under the spell of erroneous theology, which looks appealing and true on the outside but is actually nothing but lies.

Canto 3

Una’s encounter with the lion highlights Spenser’s fusion of Christian theology and allegory with classical mythology and paganism’s reverence for nature. The lion at first seeks to kill Una; once it is close enough to apprehend whom and what she really is, it becomes tame and obedient. God’s truth is a higher law than the law of nature, where power and teeth reign supreme. That the lion joins Una as her protector demonstrates the submission of the natural world to spiritual revelation.

The damsel Abessa, or “absence,” represents a lax attitude toward the important details of the church. She could be everything from the minister who is lazy in his Biblical scholarship, to the layperson that is in fact absent from church on Sundays because he deems other things to be a higher importance. Abessa’s absence allows Kirkrapine, the church-thief, to steal from the very house of God. When the lion kills Kirkrapine, the natural law has gone into effect upon someone breaking the spiritual law--morally corrupt choices lead to physical destruction.

Sansloy, or “lawlessness,” is brother to Sansfoy and more able at combat than both Archimago and the lion. The lawless man--the one who sins without regret and rejects the moral law of God--may come out ahead of both the deception and natural law. Spenser allegorizes the immense power of human morality and immorality to resist the law of nature that was able to deal with Kirkrapine. Sansloy is also a sinner, but he sins boldly and without the secretive nature of either Kirkrapine or Archimago.

Canto 4

A porter, Idleness, leads Redcrosse along a broad path to the House of Pride, a direct reference to Matthew 7:13 (“broad is the way that leads to destruction“). Lucifera, mistress of the House of Pride, is the chief of the seven deadly sins, Pride. Her name is a feminization of Lucifer, a name for Satan in Christian theology. Satan is said to have committed the sin of pride when he saw himself as better than his Creator. Similarly, Lucifera as pride is Redcrosse’s gateway into the other sins; if Redcrosse is more prone to any sin than others are, it is his pride in his personal power. Allegorically, we see how an individual’s holiness can become dangerously like pride if it is focused on the self rather than on God.

Canto 5

Another brother of Sansfoy seeks vengeance for his brother’s death. Sansjoy (“joylessness”) challenges Redcrosse, but the once-virtuous knight is now driven by bloodlust and rage. Duessa saves Sansjoy in a foreshadowing mockery of Redcrosse’s own rescue by Una later in the book. In fact, all of the sinful symbols in this Canto are twisted parallels of later virtues, as we see in the House of Holiness of Canto 10.

Canto 6

When Sansloy attempts to rape Una, her cries are heard by local wood spirits, the fauns and satyrs. Their immediate adoration of her again echoes Spenser’s fusion of pagan and Christian ideals, with paganism submitting itself to the truth of Protestant Christianity whenever the two are together. Spenser wants his reader to know that the mythical and natural elements of classical and neo-classical writers and artists are subsumed within the true Christian faith, and that the God whose supernatural revelation founded the church is the same God who has created the natural world and all that is in it.

Satyrane is the balanced blend of the human and the mythical, as he is half-human and half-satyr. He, too, is a knight and so may stand among the other virtuous warriors of The Faerie Queene. He may represent the pre-Christian champion, who follows God through his understanding of the natural world rather than by the supernatural revelation given through Jesus Christ.

Canto 7

Redcrosse continues his descent into sin. Although he has escaped the dungeons of the House of Pride, he gives in to the temptation of Duessa and engages in a carnal relationship with her. This act weakens him for the giant Orgoglio (Italian for “pride”). Redcrosse has succumbed to his own pride and is now at its mercy. Duessa’s prize of a bestial mount casts her in parallel to the Whore of Babylon from Revelation 17, who rode atop a seven-headed monster. (The Whore of Babylon was often interpreted as the Roman Catholic Church by Protestants of Spenser’s day, which saw the seven heads as representative of the seven hills of Rome.)

Redcrosse and Una are together in the same Canto for the first time since he abandoned her in Canto 1. Her happenstance meeting with Prince Arthur introduces this pivotal character to the epic. Prince Arthur is, of course, the young King Arthur, mythical past and destined future ruler of Britain. Arthur steps in to fulfill the role left vacant by Redcrosse, but he does it as part of his larger quest to find the Faerie Queene.

Canto 8

Prince Arthur triumphs where Redcrosse failed, for he is not prideful. Arthur’s attack on Duessa’s mount may be a reference to his virtuous assault on the foundations of Roman Catholicism, or perhaps even a political cry for a leader to champion Protestantism over Catholicism in Spenser’s own day. Arthur is victorious over Orgoglio and wins Redcrosse’s freedom.

Redcrosse begins his rehabilitation by facing the truth. He must look upon Duessa’s true form that he may never forget the true nature of deceit (particularly the theological deceit of Roman Catholicism).

Canto 9

Prince Arthur’s tale of his own quest for the Faerie Queene foreshadows his own involvement in the epic (had it been completed). Once he leaves their company, Redcrosse and Una immediately encounter a victim of Despair. The victim, another knight, displays the depths of his self-loathing in the noose he wears around his neck. Redcrosse challenges Despair, but he is easily persuaded that his recent sins have blackened his soul beyond redemption. Despair focuses Redcrosse only on his own failures, with no mention of the grace of God. Una again comes to the rescue, as the truth saves him from suicide and leads him to the House of Holiness to recuperate.

Canto 10

The House of Holiness is the virtuous counterpart to the House of Pride. It is accessed by a narrow path (cf. Matthew 7:13); the porter is Humility, and the mistress of the House is Dame Caelia, which means “heavenly.” Whereas the House of Pride was the abode of the seven deadly sins, the House of Holiness shelter’s Dame Caelia’s daughters, whose names mean “Faith,” “hope,” and “charity” (the three highest virtues as recorded in 1 Corinthians 13). Redcrosse must be retrained through several allegorical situations, creating an allegory-with-an-allegory in this Canto. That this training ends with a vision of the New Jerusalem indicates that Redcrosse has succeeded and his healed, for he has seen a vision of the New Heavens and New Earth as recreated by God at the end of days--a vision available only to those who persevere in their faith.

Canto 11

The climax of Book 1 occurs with the battle between Redcrosse and the dragon. The dragon, of course, is an image of Satan from Revelation, and its siege of Una’s parent’s castle is a general statement of the state of Christianity in a Satanically-controlled world, and a specific criticism of the Catholic Church’s stranglehold over the political and historical ancestors of Protestantism (both in the Holy Land and in England herself). The three days of the battle correspond to the three days between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, while the particular events of those three days represent specific church ordinances: Redcrosse’s recovery by falling into the Well of Life represents Baptism, while the healing given by the Tree of Life parallels communion (or the Eucharist).

Canto 12

The defeat of the dragon frees Una’s parents and their subjects to celebrate, and frees Una and Redcrosse to be betrothed. Redcrosse has one higher calling, however, in his duty to the Faerie Queene. Una has no difficulty with the wait, for she sees Gloriana (Queen Elizabeth) as the great sovereign without equal; beside her, all other claims fall to last place.