Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book ISpenser, Edmund
General
Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I
Spenser, Edmund
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700; Knights and knighthood -- Poetry; Virtues -- Poetry
1. Who rescued Una from Sansloy? 2. How does Una repay their kindness? 3.
How was she treated by them? 4. Explain the references to the various
classes of nymphs. 5. Look up the classical references in xvi and xviii. 6.
Why is Una described as "luckelesse lucky"? 7. What customs of the early
Christians are referred to in xix? 8. What does Sir Satyrane symbolize in
the allegory? 9. What was his character and education? 10. Note the
Elizabethan conception of the goddess Fortune in xxxi. 11. Did Una act
ungratefully in leaving the Satyrs as she did? 12. Who is the _weary wight_
in xxxiv? 13. What news of St. George did he give? Was it true? 14. Who is
the Paynim mentioned in xl? 15. Note Euphuistic antithesis in xlii. 16.
Explain the figures in iv, vi, x, xliv. 17. Paraphrase ll. 289, 296. 18.
Find _Latinisms_ in xxv; xxvi; xxviii; xxxi; and xxxvii. 19. Describe the
fight at the end of the Canto.
CANTO VII
I. _The Plot:_ (Continuation of Canto V). Duessa pursues the Redcross
Knight, and overtakes him sitting by an enchanted fountain, weary and
disarmed. He is beguiled into drinking from the fountain, and is quickly
deprived of strength. In this unnerved and unarmed condition he is suddenly
set upon by the giant Orgoglio. After a hopeless struggle he is struck down
by the giant's club and is thrust into a dungeon. Una is informed by the
dwarf of the Knight's misfortune and is prostrated with grief. Meeting
Prince Arthur, she is persuaded to tell her story and receives promise of
his assistance.
II. _The Allegory:_ 1. The Christian soldier, beguiled by Falsehood, doffs
the armor of God, and indulges in sinful pleasures, and loses his purity.
He then quickly falls into the power of Carnal Pride, or the brutal tyranny
of False Religion (Orgoglio). He can then be restored only by an appeal to
the Highest Honor or Magnificence (Prince Arthur) through the good offices
of Truth and Common Sense.
2. In the reaction from the Reformation, Protestant England by dallying
with Romanism (Duessa, Mary Queen of Scots) falls under the tyrannic power
of the Pope (Orgoglio), with whom Catholic England was coquetting. At this
juncture National Honor and Consciousness comes to the relief of
Protestantism. There is personal compliment to either Lord Leicester or Sir
Philip Sidney.
19. HE FEEDES UPON, he enjoys. A Latinism: cf. Vergil's _Aeneid_, iii.
37. PHOEBE, a surname of Diana, or Artemis, the goddess of the moon.
45. Spenser probably takes the suggestion from the fountain in the gardens
of Armida in Tasso's _Jerusalem Delivered_, xiv, 74. Cf. also the fountain
of Salmacis in Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, xv, 819 _seq_.
56. POURD OUT, a metaphor borrowed from Euripides (_Herac._, 75) and Vergil
(_Aeneid_, ix, 317).
62. HIS LOOSER MAKE, his too dissolute companion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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