The Plot of The Faerie Queene

Abstract

Courthope, in his History of English Poetry, asks the question: “Does Spenser's work satisfy the test of Unity which must be applied to every great creation of art?” Answering this question, Courthope thinks that there is undoubtedly poetical unity in the general conception of The Shepherd's Calendar. But of the Faerie Queene, he says the following:There is undoubtedly a noble, indeed a sublime, foundation for the poem in its central design “to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline.” There is also something eminently poetical in the intention of embodying this image in the ideal knight—a figure consecrated like that of the shepherd, by ancient literary tradition—and in the person of “Arthur before he was king.” Moreover, as the subject was to be treated allegorically, it was open to Spenser to endow his knight with the “twelve private moral virtues, as Aristotle hath devised.” … No poem in existence can compare with the Faery Queen in the richness of its materials. But the question occurs: In what way is all this “variety of matter” fused with the central image of the “brave knight, perfected in all the twelve private moral virtues”? For this, we must always remember, was Spenser's professed and primary motive; he chose to convey his moral in a form of allegorical narrative, because he thought it would be “most plausible and pleasing, being covered with an historical fiction.”