The Faerie Queene" Book-I is blended with epic and romantic qualities.-- Discuss

 

 1. The Faerie Queene" Book-I is blended with epic and romantic qualities.-- Discuss

Introduction :Fairy Queen is famous epic of Edmund Spenser.  In the epic, the Epic poet craftily presents The Renaissance and Reformation elements. Though the use of the elements, the epic poet presents the different type of allegory.  As a result in the epic poem, the epic poet has presented religious, political and spiritual allegory. Behind it's allegorical significance, it has a romantic qualities that blend with epic.

The following points provide a stream of concern to it's epic and romantic qualities :-

Mingled Invocation To The Muses

As we know that an epic is a Long poem dealingwith heroic actions  written in a Lofty style.Invocation is an important  part of an epic andCanto 1 begins with that item. 

 Spenser makes an approprioate invocation, First, he invokes the Muse who inspired him a short time ago to write a pastoral poem, now he undertakes the task of writing the stern deeds of war and to sing of the deeds of noble birth. Then he goes on to Pray to Clio, the chief of the nine muses to assist him in carring  out the task. He Says:

Overmuch Heroism

The poem deals with the elemets of heroic deeds of the Red Cross Knight who alone fights with a powerful giant, the monster of Erroh and defeats that monster courageously, 

The Knight of the Red Cross accompanied by Lady Una, proceeded his journey to accomplish the task entrusted to him. As he was going through a wood, he found himself before a cave. This was the cave of monster Error, represented as a horrible creature, with the face of a woman and the hind part a serpent. After much terrible fighting, the monster was killed by the Knight, as we find in Book-I of The Faerie Queene.

The fight between the Knight and the monster proved to be the most fierce one. At one point in the course of his fighting the Knight found himself in the tight grip of the monster's huge tail. At this time Lady Una shouted to the Knight to show his bravery She urged him to have faith in himself and in Jesus Christ.

Romantic Elements With An Epic Feature

"The Faerie Queene" can be best described s a romantic epic, Because along with epic features,the romantic elements are also discussed in it. In Canto 1, the romantic elements occur to a large degree. In the theme, there is Knightly Love. Nature in all her grandeur is depicted perfectly.

Through the forest, the journey of the Red Cross Knight and Lady Una to release her parents isthe paradigm of scenic beauty, The trees, in thegrove where the Knight and Una had to take shelter against the storm, were very tall and were covered with the thick leaves from which the light of the sun, moon, and stars could not penetrate, lt was Like a woven sheet of leaves to act as an umbrella to protect them fom the rain,

Sympathetic Heroine and romantic elements 

Edmund Spenser begins his epic with the adventures of the Knight of the Red Cross, who was deputéd by the Fairy Queen to relieve the distress of Lady Una, whose parents dwelt in perpetual dread of a fierce Dragon that had laid waste their whole kingdom andthreatened them with death and destruction. 

The Knight of the Red Cross accompanied by Lady Una, proceeded his journey\to accomplish the task entrusted to him portending a sympathetic and romantic elements in the poem.

War And Love

War is the theme of epic and love is the theme of romantic poem poems. They were the main themes of romances of Spenser's time, Spenser added religion to it. In this Canto, the poet treated the themes of Love, war, and heligion romantically The purity of Una's Love charms the reader. The intrigues of Archimago in the guise of religion,though hated but undoubtedly romantic.

A happy Ending :

A happy ending is the last quality of a romance.In the Last moment of the epic, we see that the Red Cross Knight has effectively rescued Una's parents from the Drogon. They came back to their oun kingdom, This epic is filled up it's all the qualities of a romantic epic.

Reference - Study guide, Lecture series, PRC foundation and text book.

This note is prepared by MD. Nafiz karim.( Founder of Writers360 Blog)