Write a discourse on Spenser's treatment of good and evil in The Faerie Queene'.
Write a discourse on Spenser's treatment of good and evil in The Faerie Queene'.
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. The major themes of Faerie Queene are love, religion, politics, morality and ethics, Justice and judgment, appearances and loyalty.
The epic The faerie queene, by Edmund Spenser has shown the interaction between good and evil virtues and vices. Spenser thought that this fight can better be expressed though allegory because moral lesion rendered plainly might be unpleasant for readers.
The good and evil’s conflict has been depicted by means of characters who are divided into two hostile groups. The faerie queene highlights the struggle between the Roman Catholics headed by Queen English Protestants headed by Queen Elizabeth who stands for good.
Edmund Spenser's treatment of good and evail in the poem 'Fairy Queen' has been justified through the following points :-
Protestant vs Catholicism as treatment of good and evil.
The fight between the knight and the monsterError actually reflects the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism of England. When the monster vomits, some papers and books come out. These papers and books reflect the bitchy pamphlets directed against Queen Elizaabeth by the Roman Catholics, As Spenser says-
"But on his brest a bloudie Crosse he bore,
The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead as living ever him ador'd:"
Virtues vs vices as a treatment of good and evil.
Behind these bare facts, there are spiritual and moral
Knight who is appointed by the_ Fairy Queen to assist Lady Una in Holiness.Lady Una stands for Truth, Goodness and Wisdom and her par symbolise Humanity held by Evil represented by the foul
Dragon. The mission of Holiness is to champion the cause of truth and regain the right ofkaman race, held in subjection by the mighty force of evil. Spenser wrote in his poems :-
"This is the wandring wood, this Errours den,
A monster vile, whom God and man does hate:
Therefore I read beware. Fly fly
this is no place for living men.;"
Red cross Knight as a treatment of Good personification :
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 and
threatened 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. 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 bhind part a serpept.After much terrible fighting, the monster was killed by the Knight, as we find in Book-I of The Faerie Queene:-
"Halfe furious unto his foe he came
Resolved in mind all suddenly win."
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.
In this poem Edmond Spenser gave a treatment of good and evil . Good side always fight against evil one.
Lady Una as a treatment of good personification :
Una is the personification of the " True Church". She travels with the Redcross Knight who represents England and Whom she has recruited to save her parents' from the treat of a fierce dragon. She aslo defeats Duessa who represents the false Catholic church and she is also representative of Truth.
Monster Error as a treatment of evil personification:
Red Cross and Una come across various manifestations of evil monster error. The first encounter is with monster Error. The monster Error allegorically stands for all sorts of mistakes which every individual makes in the course of his life portending as evil personification of the poem.
The books and papers Vomited by Error allude to the offensive pamphlets directed against Queen Elizabeth by the Roman Catholics.
Archimago as a treatment of evil personification.:
Archimago, an evil sorcerer who is sent to stop the knights in the service of the Faerie Queene. Of the Knights, Archimago hates Redcrosse most of all, hence he is symbolically the nemesis of England.
Duessa as a treatment of evil personification :
Duessa is "duplicity," the opposite of Una. She is first seen as paramour to the evil red cross knight and lies about her identity to Redcrosse in an attempt to seduce him. She eventually succeeds in winning Redcrosse's favor and dragging him into Orgoglio's dungeon, but her efforts are undone by the intervention of Una.
Conclusion :- Spenser has exposed an evil and good treatment in his poem through the personification of various virtues and vices that mingled over the time of England.
