Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene is well known as an allegorical work, and the poem is typically read in relation to the political and religious context of the time. The term allegory tends to be loosely defined, rendering a whole work an extended metaphor, or even implying “any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning”(Cuddon 20). In true Spenserian style, with everything having double meanings, both uses of the term allegory are applicable to his writing.
Thus, during the course of this essay it is best not to think of allegory in terms of the size of a body of writing, but as writing with a “second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning”(Baldick 6). Whilst reading for political and religious allegory is key in understanding Spenser’s message, reading for moral allegory also provides readers with detailed insight into the text. It is because of this that I have chosen to focus not only on political and religious allegory but also the moral allegory that accompanies episodes in Book One focused on Una and Duessa. The two characters represent a multitude of allegories; truth and falseness, and Protestantism and Catholicism being the most prominent. Una and Duessa represent a binary opposition, and it is because of this that they help to produce a wealth of allegory when read closely. The characters represent conflicting ideas, yet neither of which would be conceivable without the other. Both characters can only function in the poem when supported by one another, if one character were to be removed, the binary opposition would be removed and the allegory drawn from either Una or Duessa would be less productive. The two episodes I will be investigating are Canto I, Stanzas 4...
... middle of paper ...
...ly representing someone or something more true to life. Roberts is right in saying “Spenser’s allegorical poem demands the active engagement of its reader to produce allegory”(1). Although he never permits to say it directly, he is also right in noting that close reading of The Faerie Queene provides a much broader ranger of allegory. The examined stanzas are somewhat deceptive; they are short seemingly unimportant introductions that do not contribute to plot. However, in keeping with the true double nature of Spenser’s writing they contribute so much more than that to the text. Spenser uses the stanzas as a gateway for us to begin our study of his characters. Each close reading provides the reader with a different allegory, and it is through these multiple interpretations that Spenser manages to reveal part of his overall political, religious, and moral messages.
Bloomfield, Morton W. New Literary History. Winter ed. N.p.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972. Print. Vol. 2 of Allegory as Interpretation. 3 vols. First.
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
In The Faerie Queene, Spenser presents an eloquent and captivating representation of the Roman Catholic Church, her hierarchy, and patrons as the malevolent forces pitted against England in her exploits as Epic Hero. A discussion of this layer of the allegory for the work in its entirety would be a book in and of itself, so, for the purposes of this exercise, the focus will be confined to Book I, Canto 1, through the vanquishing of the dragon, Errour. Even in this small section of the work, however, it will be evident that Spenser very much took to heart both his duty as an Englishman to honour Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth I, and his duty as a Protestant Christian to champion the Church of England. The purpose of this exercise is not to prove whether Spenser was correct in his assertions, but to explore the manner in which he sets forth his views; it is, therefore, written from the position that his views are righteous, in the interest of eliminating the need for multiple caveats stating that the ideas herein are an interpretation of Spenser's beliefs. That being said, Spenser's multi-layered allegory sets him apart as perhaps the first Anglican Apologist, in whose footsteps C.S. Lewis would later follow with his own deeply symbolic tales. That Spenser displayed the literary and imaginative prowess to lay down so many layers of richly crafted allegorical fabric has made The Faerie Queene a work for the ages, both as lessons in English and Ecclesiastical history and as a fine example of the enduring beauty of the Language.
The central figures in these three works are all undoubtedly flawed, each one in a very different way. They may have responded to their positions in life, or the circumstances in which they find themselves may have brought out traits that already existed. Whichever applies to each individual, or the peculiar combination of the two that is specific to them, it effects the outcome of their lives. Their reaction to these defects, and the control or lack of it that they apply to these qualities, is also central to the narrative that drives these texts. The exploration of the characters of these men and their particular idiosyncrasies is the thread that runs throughout all of the works.
Faerie Tale follows the tale of the Hastings family and their move to a rural mansion in New York. The Hastings family includes; Phil Hastings, a screenwriter working on a novel and his wife, retired actress, Gloria Hastings, Phil's daughter, Gabbie, a wealthy heiress from Phil's previous marriage, and twin boys, Sean and Patrick, who are particularly targeted by the “bad thing” in the story. The “bad thing” is a minion of the evil faerie king who is attempting to re-enter the mortal world before the “moving” closes the temporary portal between worlds on midnight on Halloween. Throughout the story different characters help the Hastings in different ways. Most helpful are the Irish immigrant Barney Doyle who eventually tells Sean how to save Patrick from the faerie realm, and Mark Blackman, an author who provides information along the way every time a new secret about the mansion is revealed. In the end the Erl King is killed only to be replaced by the fairy that kills him, revealing the cyclical nature of the fairy realm and how the creatures are not truly immortal but trapped in a predestined loop that forever repeats the same story; the queen and king to be fall in love, a child is stolen, it is fought over resulting in a demi-war between two factions, with the new king to be sometimes killing the evil king to become a good king or siding with evil king to become an evil king and killing the queen. Various “plot twists” can occur but the faeries know that the end result will always be the crowning of a new king and queen through the shedding of blood.
The characters of the poem are also some very meaningful keys in showing the hidden meaning. The first stanza describes the crowd that has gathered to watch the enactment of our human lives. Lines three and four states "an angel throng, bewinged, and bedight in veils, and drowned in tears." Poe is stating that a group of angels is going to watch the spectacle put on for them, although they are already drowning in the tears from plays before. The orchestra that plays for them is another set of characters that have meaning. They represent the background in everyone's life by "playing the music of the spheres." A third set of characters that show hidden meaning is the "Mimes, in the form of God on high." They denote the people that inhabit the earth. Poe describes them as "Mere puppets they, who come and go at bidding of vast formless things." The vast formless things are the ideas that we have. Ideas like the things that we think we have to do for ourselves to survive and succeed. They also make up drama of the play. A final, prominent figure in this dramatic performance is the conqueror worm. Poe illustrates it as "a blood-red thing.
The elaborate soliloquy spoken by Othello as he approaches his sleeping wife (V.ii.1-22) contains some splendid images, such as “chaste stars,” “monumental alabaster,” “flaming minister,” and “Promethean heat,” but its key words are simple and used repeatedly: cause, soul, blood, die, light, love, and weep. In his last sustained speech (V.ii.338-56), the images are fewer and approached through the simplest words (“Speak of me as I am”) and most blatant antitheses (“loved not wisely, but too well”). (xiv)
The first literary device that can be found throughout the poem is couplet, which is when two lines in a stanza rhyme successfully. For instance, lines 1-2 state, “At midnight, in the month of June / I stand beneath the mystic moon.” This is evidence that couplet is being used as both June and moon rhyme, which can suggest that these details are important, thus leading the reader to become aware of the speaker’s thoughts and actions. Another example of this device can be found in lines 16-17, “All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies / (Her casement open to the skies).” These lines not only successfully rhyme, but they also describe a woman who
Othello avoids all irrelevancies and the action moves swiftly from the first scene to the denouement. We never get lost in a multiplicity of incidents or a multitude of characters. Our attention remains centered on the arch villainy of Iago and his plot to plant in Othello’s mind a corroding belief in his wife’s faithlessness. (viii)
The belief and concept of dishonor in the Greek and Colombian culture of ‘Antigone,’ by Sophocles, and ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold,’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is a deciding aspect that blinds characters moral values. It is evident that in both societies Greek and Colombian, a family or an individual without honor is an outcast to the community. As honor plays a drastic role in outlining the culture of the society. Therefore the belief that a perpetrator has brought dishonor upon the family, or community foreshadows punishment for the individual, often conveyed through death.
Out of ever perplexity Dante faces throughout his journeys in Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, this one of merit and grace is the most significant one. This thought entails what the whole Comedia is about by essentially determining the principal matter of his revolutionary work – each one’s merit produced by God’s grace. His use of “merit” and “grace” brings the reader’s attention to focus on how this determines the measurement of understanding. The tension between merit and grace plays one of the most important roles in the Divine Comedy because it is seen everywhere especially when Dante finally learns to understand each step of his journey. Dante is enlightened on the judgment of souls and he devotes himself to reach grace and, ultimately, sanctity.
The idea of altering perception is a fundamental one in “The Winter’s Tale”, and art is seen as the way to make this alteration occur. While it is clear to the reader from the very beginning that Hermione is in fact innocent, Shakespeare introduces the reader to Leontes’s persistence to clearly show the beginnings of the conflict brewing. Despite Hermione’s clear innocence, Leontes has been written as a character so belligerent to ever see what is universally accepted as true in nature. The result is a conflict clear to the reader—a conflict of nature on its own merit, a question of truth, versus art, where perception is inherently flawed. Shakespeare creates a truly paranoid, conflicted character in Leontes, which works to make his objectivity, his desire to make truths out of falsities, even more apparent. Leontes speaks to the audience passionately upon his discovery, but his passion sounds so melodramatic, especially when we as readers a...
It has indeed been suggested that the logic of events in the play and of Othello’s relation to them implies Othello’s damnation, and that the implication is pressed home with particular power in the imagery. This last amounts to interpreting the suggestions of the imagery as a means of comment by the author – the analogy would be the choruses of Gre...
In our own time more genteel, but also more intellectualized versions of Rymer’s disfavour have been voiced by T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis, who both consider and reject the personality that Othello presents to the outside world, pointing out that he is not so much deceived as a self-deceiver, a man presented by Shakespeare as constitutionally incapable of seeing the truth about himself. So the detached, ironic view of the creator contrasts with the tragical and romantic view taken of himself by the created being. (201)
Milton’s poetic license entitles him to write as he pleases and therefore justifies his adaptation of an allegory into his epic. It is clearly apparent that Milton recognizes this privilege when...