Blatant Beast, who abuse them verbally, and Envy’s
serpent stings Artegall. Talus offers to chastise them,
but Artegall restrains him and rides on, ignoring their
taunts and slanders. This scene mirrors what occurred
in July 1582 when, after years of disapproval, Eliza-
beth I recalled Lord Grey from Ireland because of his
excessively cruel methods of dealing with the Irish.
Such a presentation of Artegall and Talus suggests that
Spenser was censuring Elizabeth’s treatment of her
own offi cers.
Though the repetitive violence and agenda pushing
Book 5 make it aesthetically dull, Spenser redeems him-
self with Book 6, the “Legende of Courtesie,” which is
often considered the most aesthetically successful book.
The pastoral world it creates contrasts sharply with the
harshness of the world in Book 5. In terms of the poem’s
narrative structure and philosophy, the world of cour-
tesy is regarded as dependent on the world of justice:
Only after justice has been implemented can peace and
beauty fl ourish. Yet this is not say that the world of Book
6 is without confl ict; it merely presents confl ict in a dif-
ferent way. In “The Booke of Courtesie,” Spenser links
the chivalric mode, in which knights ride out to battle
adversaries in a hostile world, with the pastoral mode,
which idealizes the natural world as majestic and regen-
erative. Its pastoral character is evident not only in the
book’s narrative structure but also in the inclusion of
fi gures from folk legend such as a noble savage, a baby
caught in the jaws of a bear, a pack of cannibals, and a
band of brigands, among others. Although the central
episodes feature a number of characters, the book as a
whole is concerned with Calidore’s pursuit of the Bla-
tant Beast (which fi rst appeared at the end of Book 5), a
ferocious doglike creature that slanders innocent people.
Rumor and slander are, appropriately, the major threats
to courtesy.
Characteristic of the second half of Spenser’s epic,
Book 6 ends irresolutely. Broadly, we may characterize
the fi rst half of the poem as reformist, forward-looking,
and optimistic, and the second half as rueful, retro-
spective, and pessimistic. For example, in Book 1, Red-
crosse recovers Eden, but in Book 6, it is unclear
whether Calidore saves or destroys ARCADIA. Perhaps
this change occurs because of the nature of the virtues
being represented. The fi rst half of the epic is con-
cerned with private virtues related to the proper con-
duct of the individual: holiness, temperance, and
chastity. The second half deals with social or public
virtues related to the interaction of the individual with
others in friendship, justice, and courtesy. Perhaps, in
the end, private virtues are easier to perfect.
Composition of The Faerie Queene occupied Edmund
Spenser for most of his life. Due to the author’s sudden
death in 1599, several issues are left to be resolved,
and what would have been the rest of his masterpiece
must largely be left up to the reader’s imagination. Yet
during his lifetime, Spenser’s hard work was rewarded,
as the poem found political favor with Elizabeth I, was
consequently very successful, and earned him a pen-
sion of 50 pounds a year for life.
Because of the elaborate structure of The Faerie
Queene, citations are sometimes diffi cult. In general,
scholars cite the book, canto, and line, sometimes
including the stanza within a canto (eg., 1.2.14–15 or
1.2.1.14–15). If these items are noted earlier in a sen-
tence, the line numbers alone are suffi cient.
See also CHIVALRY.
FURTHER READING
Alpers, Paul. The Poetry of The Faerie Queene. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967.
Freeman, Rosemary. The Faerie Queene: A Companion for
Readers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970.
Hamilton, A. C. The Structure of Allegory in the Faerie
Queene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Heale, Elizabeth. The Faerie Queene: A Reader’s Guide. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Hough, Graham. A Preface to the Faerie Queene. New York:
Norton, 1963.
Kane, Sean. Spenser’s Moral Allegory. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1989.
Wells, Robin Headlam. Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” and the Cult
of Elizabeth. London and Canberra: Croon Helm; Totowa,
New Jersey: Barnes & Noble, 1983.
Melissa FeminoThe Faerie Queene: Book 1 EDMUND SPENSER
(1590) EDMUND SPENSER explained in a letter to SIR
WALTER RALEIGH that the context of his EPIC tale, The
Faerie Queene, was that the Faerie Queen was holding a
12-day feast, and that each of these days was marked178 THE FAERIE QUEENE: BOOK 1