SELF-INTERPRETATION IN THE FAERIE QUEENE

"This book re-examines The Faerie Queene's allegorical method, showing what is gained by recognising that the poem's main locus of allegorical self-interpretation, as in the medieval Quest of the Holy Grail, is within rather than extrinsic to the story world. Like the knights of the Quest, Spenser's heroes are poised between rival codes of moral interpretation, in a way that illuminates the relative value of those codes as guides to action. But unlike is predecessor, Spenser's poem addresses an era violently divided as to which constitutes the true code of right and wrong. Amongst the oppositions it grapples with are the ideological conflict in England and Ireland between emergent monarchic absolutism and residual feudalism, the doctrinal division between the Elizabethan and Roman churches, and the Machiavellian challenge to received ideas about political and religious legitimacy."--BOOK JACKET.