fabliaux feature socially ambitious bourgeois mer-
chants and artisans, and as such, many are also merci-
less on social climbers.
Approximately 150 fabliaux have survived, most
averaging around 250 lines. During the 12th and 13th
centuries, the fabliau fl ourished in France, and its pop-
ularity continued in England. The two most well-
known fabliaux in Middle English are “The MILLER’S
TALE,” which is thought to borrow from De Bérangier
au lonc cul, and (to a slightly lesser extent) “The REEVE’S
TALE,” both written by GEOFFREY CHAUCER as part of
The CANTERBURY TALES. “The Shipman’s Tale,” “Sum-
moner’s Tale,” and fragmentary “Cook’s Tale” also
exhibit fabliau characteristics.
While fabliaux are often said to lack the moralizing
principles characteristic of FABLEs, they do generally
feature a dubious brand of “fabliau justice,” according
to which the unruly protagonists are indubitably pun-
ished for their baser motivations and physiological
shortcomings. Nowhere is this more apparent than in
“The Miller’s Tale,” in which jealous John the Carpen-
ter, his infamously unchaste wife Alisoun, and her
illicit suitors—an Oxford clerk called “hende Nicolas”
(I. 3199) and his would-be rival, a foppish parish clerk
named Absolon—all receive their comeuppance by the
end of the tale.
See also MIDDLE ENGLISH POETRY; “MILLER’S TALE,
THE.”
FURTHER READING
Bloch, R. Howard. The Scandal of the Fabliaux. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1986.
Cooke, Thomas D. The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux:
A Study of Their Comic Climax. Columbia: University of
Missouri, 1978.
Cooke, Thomas D., and Benjamin L. Honeycutt, eds. The
Humor of the Fabliaux: A Collection of Critical Essays.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974.
Pearcy, Roy. “Investigations into the Principles of Fabliau
Structure.” Genre 9 (1976): 345–378.
Michelle M. Sauer, Jamie Gianoutsos, and
Christopher D. Lozensky
FAERIE QUEENE, THE (OVERVIEW)
EDMUND SPENSER (1590, 1596) According to the
Renaissance idea of a poetic career, EDMUND SPENSER’s
EPIC poem, which he dedicated to “the most high,
mightie and magnifi cent empresse renowned for pietie,
vertue, and all gratious government Elizabeth” (ELIZA-
BETH I), marked his transition from a novice to a master
poet. This idea derived largely from VIRGIL’s (70–19 B.
C.E.) poetic career. Virgil became the inspiration for a
number of Renaissance poets, both because of his artis-
tic success and because his career exemplifi ed the suc-
cessful union of poetry and national destiny. Given the
emerging nationalism of the Renaissance, many
poets—especially Spenser, whom his contemporaries
called “the English Virgil”—modeled their careers after
Virgil’s. This pattern of modeling is called the cursus
Virgilii, the Virgilian course, as explained in a four-line
proem (preface) appended to 16th-century editions of
the Aeneid. There, Virgil describes how he began with
the “shepherd’s slender pipe” (PASTORAL poetry, his
Eclogues), proceeded to the “farmlands” (his didactic
Georgics), and fi nally arrived at the “sterner stuff of
Mars” (epic poetry, his Aeneid).
Spenser uses similar language in the proem to Book
1 of The Faerie Queene: “Lo I the man, whose Muse
whilome did maske, / As time her taught in lowly
Shepheards weeds, / Am now enforst a far unfi tter
taske, / For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten
reeds.” In the Renaissance, a poet’s move from pastoral
to epic could only be achieved after suffi cient artistic
maturity, which at this point Spenser had achieved. By
the time the fi rst three books of The Faerie Queene were
published (1590), Spenser had already made a name
for himself as a great poet with The SHEPHEARDES CALEN-
DER (1579), and by the time the last three books were
published (1596), he had further distinguished him-
self with the publication of his collection of short
poems called Complaints (1591) and his SONNET
SEQUENCE entitled AMORETTI (1595).
When The Faerie Queene was fi rst published in 1590,
there were a series of items printed at the end of the
volume that would later become the epic’s prefatory
matter. Spenser’s epic may be organized into fi ve dis-
tinct categories: There are the six complete books;
seven commendatory verses; 17 dedicatory sonnets;
the “Letter to Raleigh” (“A Letter of the Authors
expounding his whole intention in the course of this
work: which for that it giveth great light to the reader,FAERIE QUEENE, THE 173