“The Faerie Queene” As A Moral and Spiritual Allegory

Abstract

An allegory is a fable or story in which under imaginary persons or things is shadowed some real action or instructive moral or it may be defined as a narrative in prose or verse in which the characters, events and settings represent abstract qualities; or, as I think it is somewhere very shortly defined by Plutarch, it is that ‘in which one thing is related and another thing is understood’.  The writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface story.  The underlying meaning may be moral, religious, political, social or satiric.  The characters are often personifications of such abstractions as greed envy, hope, charity or fortitude.  “The Faerie Queene” is a historical, political and moral and spiritual allegory.  The moral and spiritual allegory underlying the first book of “The Faerie Queene”.