Critical Analysis of Spenser's Faerie Queene
Critical Analysis of Spenser's Faerie Queene
How is the condemnation of moral duplicity in Book I of the Faerie Queene compatible with the duplicity or multiplicity of meaning that allegory requires?
In answering the above question, it is necessary to focus on the function of duplicity/multiplicity in the two contexts presented. In the moral context, duplicity is equivalent with dishonesty, it involves purporting to be one thing whilst being another; it is a necessary deceit. In contrast, multiplicity in allegory involves an affirmation of truth’s power and its ability to penetrate through boundaries of meaning. In other words, the many levels and meanings of allegory reflect the same truth in different ways, while the many differences in character of the morally deceptive reveal an inconstancy as they challenge truth (in the integrity of the character). Thus the relationship to truth in the case of the morally duplicitous is one of negation whilst that of the aesthetically duplicitous (allegory) is one of confirmation. In my essay I intend to explore these processes of negation and confirmation in relation to Spenser’s Faierie Queene Book I as I explain how allegorical ideologies are employed to create a certain kind of knight and a certain kind of reader that can attain the true whilst learning to recognise and avoid the false.
First it may be beneficial to examine the nature of truth as presented in the Fairie Queen in its characteristics of worth, vulnerability, power and simplicity. C.S. Lewis has stated that ‘the first thing we notice about the Spenserian images of good is their veiled, mysterious, even hidden character’ and indeed Una, representing Truth, is veiled throughout only relinquishing her coverings on two occasions; that is, when the Red Cross Knight is finally betrothed to her in Canto 12 and when she is by herself ‘farre from all mens sight’ (3:4). Truth must remain veiled at all other times because it is a valuable prize and therefore vulnerable to exploitation. This is epitomised in the image of Una’s virginity, ‘that stubborn forte’ (6:3) which can only be gained access to through commitment on the seekers part, the kind of commitment that Arthur displays in his search for his Queen ‘To seeke her out with labour, and long tyne, / And never vow to rest, till her I find.’ (9:15) Like the House of Holiness, Una’s...