What the plan of the poem is Spenser explains in a prefatory letter to Sir
Walter Ralegh. The whole is a vast epic allegory, aiming, in the first
place, to portray the virtues which make up the character of a perfect
knight; an ideal embodiment, seen through Renaissance conceptions, of the
best in the chivalrous system which in Spenser's time had passed away, but
to which some choice spirits still looked back with regretful admiration.
As Spenser intended, twelve moral virtues of the individual character, such
as Holiness and Temperance, were to be presented, each personified in the
hero of one of twelve Books; and the crowning virtue, which Spenser, in
Renaissance terms, called Magnificence, and which may be interpreted as
Magnanimity, was to figure as Prince (King) Arthur, nominally the central
hero of the whole poem, appearing and disappearing at frequent intervals.
Spenser states in his prefatory letter that if he shall carry this first
projected labor to a successful end he may continue it in still twelve
other Books, similarly allegorizing twelve political virtues. The
allegorical form, we should hardly need to be reminded, is another heritage
from medieval literature, but the effort to shape a perfect character,
completely equipped to serve the State, was characteristically of the
Platonizing Renaissance. That the reader may never be in danger of
forgetting his moral aim, Spenser fills the poem with moral observations,
frequently setting them as guides at the beginning of the cantos.
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