The Faerie Queene A Dream of Young Manhood the vision of a young man: all of its heroes are in the prime of youth, "full of lusty life," teeming with strength, eager for adventure; its heroines are all maidens, depicted con amore, full of life, and “faire as ever living wight was faire"; its atmosphere is one of infinite hope and boundless possibility; its rewards and punishments are absolutely just,—all comes out divinely right. It is not hard to find what gave the young poet his dream and what kept his song young even to the last. He was but voicing the hope, the youth, the dreams of his young nation, now in the first flush of its manhood. The Faerie Queene is none other than Elizabeth, the Goddesse heavenly bright, Mirrour of grace, and majesty divine, Great Ladie of the greatest Isle, whose light Like Phoebus lamp throughout the world doth shine; the magnificence, the costly furnishings, "with royal arras and resplendent gold," is but a reflection of the gorgeous court of the Queen; the monsters and miracles are but commonplaces when compared with the nation's dream of America and the unknown seas; the knights are but Sidney and Raleigh in disguise; the chivalry, the boundless hope, the restless longing for adventure are but the spirit of the age. What Spenser dreamed, Drake put into living deeds. As we study the plan of The Faerie Queene and mark the vastness of its foundations, we are impressed first of all by the tremendous enthusiasm and confidence of the young poet who could deliberately begin such a work. The poem as we have it consists of six books, each divided into twelve long cantos, but the part that was finished is but a fragment of what the poet projected. We learn from the The Plan of the Poem It was Left Incomplete letter to Raleigh that there were to have been twelve books in the first part, each of which was to show forth one of "the twelve private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised, the which is the purpose of these twelve books: which if I find to be well accepted, I may be perhaps encouraged to frame the other part of politic vertues.' Thus we have," says Church," but a fourth part of the whole of the projected work." The first three books, as we learn from the introductory letter, recount the adventures of three knights: "The first of the Knight of the Redcrosse, in whom I expresse Holines: the seconde of Sir Guyon, in whome I set foorth Temperaunce: the third of Britomartis, a Lady knight, in whom I picture Chastity." The remaining books treat respectively of Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. This element of allegory must be fully appreciated or The Faerie Queene will become a vast phantasmagoria of Kings, queenes, lords, ladies, knights, and damsels gent, thrown with endless confusion into a wilderness of strange creatures, the dreams of every race and age. No one, after reading Spenser's letter to Raleigh, can wander far into the poem without the conviction that the author's central purpose was didactic, almost as much as was Bunyan's in Pilgrim's Progress. The poem is, as Milton declares, a song Of turneys and of trophies hung, Where more is meant than meets the ear. Literature produced for the mere love of creating the beautiful was unknown in Spenser's day. The work of art, it was thought, must teach its lesson; must have its Its Purpose Didactic Morals to be Made Attractive for Readers aim clearly evident. That Spenser regarded the most of his works as moral exercises we have abundant evidence. He declares of his poems in Complaints that they are all complaints and meditations on the world's vanity, verie grave and profitable." Of The Faerie Queene he declares that The generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline. Which for that I conceived should be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historicall fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for varietie of matter then for profite of the ensample. The fanciful creations, the teeming world of myths and monsters, the atmosphere of chivalry and romance, were, therefore, only an outward dress to render attractive certain moral lessons. The Faerie Queene was to be a series of sermons on holiness, temperance, chastity, and kindred virtues. In the first book of the poem the allegory is well-nigh as evident as it is in Bunyan. The book is a unity, complete in itself-indeed each of the six books stands in reality independent of the others. The young knight, “true in deede and word," who ever as he rode did yearn To prove his puissance in battell brave Upon his foe, a Dragon horrible and stearne, represents a human soul just starting in the holy life. His foe is the arch-enemy of holiness; the plain, with its vague scenery and its varied life, is the world. The youth sets out with light heart, "led with delight," Joying to heare the birdes sweete harmony, Analysis of Book I. Its Allegory his companions Truth and Innocence; but soon a storm drives him from the narrow path. Wandering in search of the way he falls in with Error, whom he overcomes. He is deceived by Hypocrisy, who separates him from Truth and Innocence; is stained by Falsehood, and at length is almost destroyed by Pride. But by the aid of Truth, who at last finds him, he escapes, feeble and emaciated, from Pride's dungeons, only to fall in with Despair, who counsels suicide. Again rescued by his good angel, he seeks the house of Holiness, where he is refreshed and disciplined by Faith, Hope, and Charity, until at last he is ready to meet and overcome the last great enemy, the dragon that he had started out to destroy. The book is full of sermons, thinly concealed, Puritanic in their earnestness. What preacher could surpass the earnest words in Canto x, or what Puritan could draw a more doleful picture of the vanities of human life than that presented by Despair in Canto ix? Despite its mythology and its sensuous beauty the poem is Puritan at heart. There is no laughter; it is as serious. and as earnest as Paradise Lost. But the allegory grows more and more obscure after the first book. "Many other adventures,” says the poet, "are intermeddled, but," he naïvely adds, " rather as accidents than intendents. As the love of Britomart, the overthrow of Florimell, the vertuousness of Belphœbe, and many the like." These accidents increase with every book. The poet's love of the merely beautiful, his passion for the poetic and the romantic, tempt him constantly from his task. The poem becomes more and more vague and discursive. Having chosen his course, the poet seems power to hold his helm steadily to the to have had no The Poet's Wanderings The Poem a Confused and Gorgeous Dream goal. He wanders everywhere; we are never sure of where we are to go next or what we are to see. We lose sight of the allegory completely and surrender ourselves to the charm of the movement and the sweetness of the music. In the later books the poem is like a gorgeous dream. Fantastic figures come without warning, whirl wildly for a moment, and disappear. The tale moves merrily for a time; our interest is awakened, we read breathlessly-it is broken never to be resumed. The sorely tried couple Amoret and Scudamour enlist our sympathies. They are ever on the verge of a joyous meeting, but they never find each other in Spenser's tale; Britomart never weds the Knight of Justice; the fair Una is forsaken and forgotten. The poem is a vast picture gallery, unclassified, chaotic, teeming with treasures. Never was there such an embarrassing wealth of beauty,-old masters retouched, new creations, sketches and studies with subjects drawn from every realm of imaginative art, ancient and modern: dragons, giants, enchanters, personified virtues and vices, mermaids, witches, satyrs, gods, monsters in every shape, enchanted castles, descents into Avernus, everywhere the machinery of knight-errantry, and over it all the romantic light of the vanishing Middle Ages. With what master strokes are painted such creations as the description of the house of Morpheus, the cave of Despair, the castle of Pride, the punishment of Tantalus, the song of the Mermaids, the fight between Artagall and Britomart,—there is no end to the list. Each picture is elaborated with infinite art; we can stand and admire it indefinitely; but the vastness of the collection at length confuses us. We wander enchanted for a time, but the very richness of the |