I. The age which produced the
FAERIE QUEENE
The study of the Faerie Queene should be preceded
by a review of the great age in which it was written.
An intimate relation exists between the history of
the English nation and the works of English authors.
This close connection between purely external events
and literary masterpieces is especially marked in
a study of the Elizabethan Age. To understand
the marvelous outburst of song, the incomparable drama,
and the stately prose of this period, one must enter
deeply into the political, social, and religious life
of the times.
The Faerie Queene was the product of certain
definite conditions which existed in England toward
the close of the sixteenth century. The first
of these national conditions was the movement known
as the revival of chivalry; the second was
the spirit of nationality fostered by the English
Reformation; and the third was that phase of the English
Renaissance commonly called the revival of learning.
The closing decade of Queen Elizabeth’s reign
was marked by a strong reaction toward romanticism.
The feudal system with its many imperfections had
become a memory, and had been idealized by the people.
The nation felt pride in its new aristocracy, sprung
largely from the middle class, and based rather on
worth than ancestry. The bitterness of the Wars
of the Roses was forgotten, and was succeeded by an
era of reconciliation and good feeling. England
was united in a heroic queen whom all sects, ranks,
and parties idolized. The whole country exulting
in its new sense of freedom and power became a fairyland
of youth, springtime, and romantic achievement.
Wise and gallant courtiers, like Sidney, Leicester,
and Raleigh, gathered about the queen, and formed
a new chivalry devoted to deeds of adventure and exploits
of mind in her honor. The spirit of the old sea-kings
lived again in Drake and his bold buccaneers, who
swept the proud Spaniards from the seas. With
the defeat of the Invincible Armada, the greatest naval
expedition of modern times, the fear of Spanish and
Catholic domination rolled away. The whole land
was saturated with an unexpressed poetry, and the
imagination of young and old was so fired with patriotism
and noble endeavor that nothing seemed impossible.
Add to this intense delight in life, with all its
mystery, beauty, and power, the keen zest for learning
which filled the air that men breathed, and it is easy
to understand that the time was ripe for a new and
brilliant epoch in literature. First among the
poetic geniuses of the Elizabethan period came Edmund
Spenser with his Faerie Queene, the allegory
of an ideal chivalry.
