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Edmund Spenser

The narrative thread of Edmund Spenser's "The F'rie Queen" seems at first highly complicated. As we enter into the world of Redcrosss knight in the first canto of this poem, we are overwhelmed with a wealth of characters. But as we proceed through the first book, it becomes clear that the complexities (which arise at times to the chaotic) lie on the surface alone, for the basic tale is a simple one. The story of Redcrosse is the story of each Christian who, in this vale of tears, must have his or her faith tested, must sin and be redeemed for those sins, and in the end defeat evil so as to be worthy to be welcomed into heaven.

The passage that we are examining for this paper, the seventeenth through nineteenth stanzas in Book One, illustrate the metonymical quality of the work. "The Fairie Queen" is, of course, an allegory, in which each character serves not merely as a character, as an individual with desires and fears like a real human being, but also as the proxy for a larger idea. Redcrosse is the embodiment of Christian faith on this level of the narrative, while Duessa is the embodiment of Christian error. But Spenser has created other symbolic levels within this text beyond the allegorical (which is, while certainly illuminating, hardly subtle).

The level of complexity in the work in terms of metrical construction as well as in terms of metaphorical and symbolic language, tends to mislead us in the same way that Redcrosse himself is also misled. Spenser has created in this poem a work that is so complicated that we cannot fail but be diverged from our true task as readers, which is to follow Redcrosse on his path toward salvation. Thus we realize, in our act of reading, how difficult it is not to stray from the path of faith.

As readers we reproduce Redcrosse's own path not only in reading about him, in following him on the journey that he himself takes past temptations and deception and despair to enduring faith, but ...

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Edmund Spenser. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 03:48, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1688403.html