Lines of Authority: The Genealogical Theme in The Faerie Queene

Abstract

The genealogical narrative in The Faerie Queene, drawing upon the “Brutan” history of Geoffrey of Monmouth and extending the line of British kings down to the Tudor dynasty, is a complex and challenging aspect of the poem that exists in strong relation to Spenser’s overall concern with mutability. The genealogical narrative is part of an attempt to define the work as an epic, with a concomitant sense of national destiny and as an emblem for achieved constancy, but that attempt is thrown into the poem’s arena and challenged by characters and events. Ideally, royal genealogy should present a rhythmic continuity that opposes and defeats mutability, analogous to the replenishing cycles of the Garden of Adonis. However, Spenser’s intellectually honest work admits and explores the problematic nature of the genealogical narrative—in particular, the problematic natures of Arthur and Elizabeth within that narrative. As historical particulars fail to cohere into an idealized providential narrative, the definition of The Faerie Queene itself as an epic comes under threat.1