Spenser uses the technique of romance for a more carefully elaborated moral allegory than had been developed in the mediaeval cycles. Thus, Book I shows how Holiness (Red Cross), accompanied by Truth (Una), slays the dragon of Error. Again the adventures of Guyon (Book II) symbolize the course of temperance through life, avoiding extremes of gloom or of false joy, avoiding wrath and excessive passion, conquering desires for wealth or sensual enjoy ment. The allegory of the poem is complex: there is the type found in medieval moral plays, representing the conflict of vices and virtues; there is the mystical interpretation of Christian doctrine; there is also translation of Plato's idealism into allegorical story. To blend with a conception so complex as this the Renaissance ideal of the perfect courtier (Spenser has in mind a man of affairs like Sidney, not a me dieval ascetic saint) rendered it impossible for the poet to use Malory's version of the Ar thurian legend in any complete of definite way. Yet the chief clue to his megind is to be found, not in itsMoral and religious allegory, which too much stressed in Spenser criti cism, but in his purpose to shadow forth his conception of the greatness of Elizabethan England and of its destiny. To bring this out, he represents, in Prince Arthur, the English realm; Gloriana, the Facile Queene, is Eliza beth Tudor. Fundamentally the poem means that the return of the old Welsh (Fairy) line, represented in the Tudors, to the government of England is the source of England's present greatness. He distinguishes carefully between fairy knights like Guyon and English knights like Saint George (Red Cross). The Queen of the Fairies appears to Prince Arthur in a vision of a type familiar in Celtic folklore, and prom ises in due time to give herself to him; Eng land, personified in Arthur, seeks to realize this vision, made complete when Elizabeth rules. Thus the poem glorifies the ancestry of the reigning house according to the rules of Renaissance epic.
But there is yet more. Artegal, knight of Justice, loves Britomart, the martial spirit of England. Justice united with British might points out a new destiny. Artegal's quest is to free Irena (Ireland) from Grantorto (Philip of Spain). In this book also Prince Arthur rescues Beige (the Netherlands) from the Spanish monster, and Duessa (Mary of Scot land) is adjudged worthy of death. Thus cer tain crucial events in Elizabeth's reign are set forth: the conflict with Spain necessitated the crushing of the Irish rebellion, fomented by Philip; it necessitated also the aid sent to the Netherlands, crushed by Philip's vast cruelty, and the execution of Mary, the chief means through which Philip plotted the destruction of free England. In a later book, Spenser no doubt would have included the final triumph over the Armada. Furthermore, this exposi tion has a direct bearing on the foreign policy of Elizabeth and is a defense of that school of politics that held it to be England's duty to emerge from isolation, to take part in continen tal politics, to substitute for diplomatic intrigue positive action on behalf of the oppressed in the Low Countries and in France against the sinister shadow of Philip's ambition for world power.. The poem is not merely a moral allegory of abstract virtues, not merely a glorification of the Queen, but a positive and almost defiant de fense of a greater nationalism that led eventu ally to the establishment of British sea power and the imperial domain. Raleigh, '"the Shep herd of the Ocean? is recognized by Spenser as a leader in this progressive movement, as he also recognized Leicester and Essex and op posed the more conservative policy of Lord Burghley.
Besides these allegories of moral and polit ical ideas, which appealed to Elizabethan love of symbolism and shadowed forth the roman tic idealism of the time, are many lovely fea tures that deepen the. picture. Such are Cali dore's wooing of the shepherdess Pastorella, as charming as the pastoral scenes in Shakes peare's Tale' ; or the flight of Brito mart with her nurse to Merlin's cave, there to learn of Artegal; or the stories of Florimel and of Amoret. These stories, and many other
strands in the complex web of Spenser's weav ing, are of the very essence of romance —the light that never was on sea or land that Words worth meditated upon, or the faery lands for lorn recalled to momentary life in the poetry of Keats. In this is one secret of Spenser's in fluence upon later English poetry, an influence more pervasive than Chaucer's or Milton's or even Shakespeare's. It is not that he is a mas ter of narrative: one who desires merely a story had best go elsewhere. It is not that he recreates the world of chivalry as Malory or Chretien had seen it in earlier times. He draws upon all sources; ancient and medieval, romance and allegory; his learning is enor mous; one stanza may be compounded of samples from many fields. But it is all fused, through the magic of his imagination, into a new unity that we feel rather than see. His sources are a thousand romances, but he is roipance incarnate.
Partly this is due to his wonderful stanza. The foundation of it is not ottava rima, as is often said, but an eight-line stanza adapted by Chaucer from the French and having the same rhymes: ababbcbc. To this Spenser added an alexandrine that repeats the third rhyme. Sin gularly adapted to the genius of one who has been called "the painter of the poets? Spenser gets from it an astonishing variety of effects through his mastery of alliteration, vowel stress, repetition, and epithet. The music of bird song and running water is in it, the opulence of taste and touch ("He seems to feel with his eyes")— the pictures in language that the poets of the Renaissance sought to paint. These pic tures are not alone of the kind often associated with his poem,— an enchantress in a Bower of Bliss, or some vividly wrought epic simile. Colin's fairy hill, a stream of living water at its base, guarded by fairies from every noisome thing; a little open place outside the stream, and beyond, as a frame for the picture, woods of matchless height that seemed to disdain the earth, is one example of his painting; another is the scene of the hundred furnaces in the Under world, surrounded by swarms of dwarfs ay.' gaged in stirring the molten ore with great ladles, with the sudden apparition of the Fairy Knight, "glistering in armes and battailous array." Though Spenser's genius is not dramatic, this element in his work is not want ing. He often refers to the theatres and to acting, and among his lost works we read of nine comedies. The masques of the "Faerie Queene" — the Temple of Venus, the Masque of Cupid, the Gardens of Adonis, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Masque of the Seasons, and others — form a constant element in his work. The journey of Guyon through the Underworld is both masque and drama, as is also the over throw of the enchanter Busirane by Britomart. In comparison with these, the masques intro duced by Shakespeare into his plays are pale and ineffectual. The tragicomedy of Malbecco is excellent throughout, and reminds one, in its power of characterization and its edged humor, of Jonson or Massinger. Spenser's characters are not all pale abstractions, creatures of boundless virtue or ugly vice. Britomart has the spirit, the bravery, as well as the beauty of Beatrice, and like Beatrice she is adorably feminine. Una is as lovely and appealing as Hermione; Pastorella is another Perdita. Guyon's career is no succession of tilts with ab stractions; the conflict is as real as in many an Elizabethan tragedy, with victory for his re ward.
But these are mere details, their only serv ice being to recall once more the infinite vari ety of the elements composing the poem. The abiding impression which it leaves upon the mind is that of a succession of marvelous dis solving views, a panorama in which the antique and medieval worlds are blended with the epic like life that England then was living. This life Spenser views through Merlin's magic glass, to wnich time and space are immaterial, and all human experience is but the semblance of things not seen.