Critical Introduction

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) was a prolific writer in England during the Elizabethan period with an output and reputation to rival John Milton. Whereas Spenser was a master of the pastoral, it is his lengthy, allegorical romance, The Faerie Queene, that has made a lasting impact on later readers. Written in the 1590s, the poem celebrates Elizabeth I (Gloriana, the Faerie Queene in the poem) and the Tudor family line that would ultimately be extinguished with her death in 1603. Mimicking medieval romances with daring knights, damsels in distress, fantastic events, and even archaic language, Spenser tries to evoke Britain's mythologized past as a metaphor for its present—in much the same way that westerns spoke to the American present in the 1950s and 1960s.

The section reproduced here comes from Book I, the most popular of the six, and details the initial adventures of Redcrosse Knight and Una. Redcrosse has embarked upon a quest to both rid Una's family of a dragon and prove himself as a knight-errant. Almost immediately, however, they run into trouble and get lost in a dark wood where they meet Errour. Since the text is an allegory, every character in it is a personification: Redcrosse is generally thought to represent England and Una to represent the “True Church” (Church of England). It is then not difficult to interpret their struggle with Errour, in which false texts are spewed out and a serpentine female attempts to ensnare Redcrosse. England, according to Spenser, is in grave danger when it strays from the path and does not heed warning signs. That Redcrosse defeats Errour is intended to be heartening, but it is not an easy battle and serves as a lesson to the young knight/country yearning to prove himself/itself.

Reading Questions

Why is Errour female? Though not reproduced here, Redcrosse has a number of encounters with male antagonists (the wizard Archimago and giants, for example), so we know that there are male monsters in the narrative. Is there any special significance to the personification of error as female? Spenser clearly does not want his audience to empathize with Errour, but consider the story from that character's point of view: Who is the threat? Who initiates contact? Who invades a character's sphere of influence?