Spenser's Redcrosse Knight and the Order of Salvation

Abstract

Spenser's Redcrosse Knight and the Order of Salvation James W. Broaddus On every matter of faith, doctrine, and belief invited by an allegorical reading of his poem, Spenser responds: "Thou saist it," for he only tells his story. A. C. Hamilton1 In the 1960s, readings of the adventures of the Redcrosse Knight as a fall and a consequent restoration or redemption supplanted earlier readings of those adventures as the education and growth of a Christian knight and subsequently gave direction to later theological interpretation.2 More recently, shifts of critical interest have encouraged the [End Page 572] pursuit of social and political matters in The Legend of the Knight of the Red Crosse, or of Holinesse (hereafter the Legend of Holiness). This essay will return to theological interpretation by offering another way to understand Redcrosse's adventures as Christian allegory. In 1960s readings, Redcrosse begins with a genuine but weak faith, suffers a fall when he abandons Una (the True Faith and/or the True Church) at Archimago's hermitage, and is eventually restored to and strengthened in his faith in the house of Holiness. In this essay, the future Saint George (1.10.61) begins as one who is elect but unsaved, one who is, however, eventually called and justified in the house of Holiness. Redcrosse's adventures will be read as an expression of the order of salvation that Protestant theologians found primarily in Romans 8:29-30 and that in 1563 the Church of England codified in article 17 of the Thirty-Nine Articles: Wherefore, they [the elect] . . . be called according to God's purpose by His Spirit working in due season; they through grace obey the calling; they be justified freely; they be made sons of God by adoption; they be made like the image of His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works; and at length, by God's mercy they attain to everlasting felicity. Different moments have been understood to allegorize or to allude to Redcrosse's calling: his putting on of the "armour of a Christian man" ("Letter to Raleigh"), his rescue by Arthur from Orgoglio's dungeon, and Una's declaration that he is "chosen" together with his assent to the declaration.3 I will argue that a literal calling and justification constitute [End Page 573] the central moment in the house of Holiness. Nohrnberg provides theory sufficient for the essay: "the basis of allegorical interpretation is the felt presence in the literal sense of a secondary pattern."4 I began to feel the presence of the order of salvation in the literal sense of Redcrosse's adventures upon a rereading of the stanza following Fidelia's teaching and preaching in the house of Holiness (10.21), together with a rereading of the initial stanzas of canto 1, and a consequent perception that Redcrosse's adventures take place in a specifically pre-Reformation faeryland rather than in a merely olden times faeryland. Consideration of Redcrosse's adventures will begin at the beginning with the "Gentle Knight . . . pricking on the plaine" (1.1).5 And, given the pre-Reformation faeryland setting, I am predisposed to find not a Protestant or an ahistorical Christian knight, newly clad in the "armour of a Christian man," but a pre-Reformation Christian and consequently Catholic knight newly clad in those arms.6 We will follow John Upton's literal reading that the knight is pricking (spurring) and, at the same time, curbing his horse; but more is suggested than an exercise to teach the horse "proudly to pace on the plaine."7 The contradictory commands indicate that Redcrosse's desire to "proue his puissance in battell braue" (1.3) now, not just on his designated foe, conflicts with [End Page 574] his commitment to Una and her quest and, thereby, to his commitment to the Faery Queen. The "clownishe younge man" ("Letter to Raleigh"), Contemplation informs us, came to the Faery court, "prickt with courage, and . . . [his] forces pryde," "to seeke for fame, / And proue . . . [his] puissaunt armes" (10.66). His impatience, to be revealed more openly in his insistence on entering Errour's den and also in his eagerness to...