British Lit, etc.

It goes without saying that The Faerie Queen is riddled with Christian doctrines, dogmas, conventions and rebellions. From the second stanza of Canto I of Book I the image of a bloody cross haunts the reader throughout the poem. This image is just the beginning of a collection of stark, ruthless Christian symbols. The idea of the Redcrosse Knight as a whole is a symbol in itself- Redcrosse (red cross) symbolizing the bloody crucifixion as well as the symbol for England as a Nation!

The whole epic poem can be read as an allegory between the battle of Satan versus God- Evil versus Good. The idea of a dragon, a fire breathing monster, can loosely be associated with Satan- hell, fire, abyss, etc. So it is not a far-fetched comparison to associate the evil of the poem, the dragon, and the battle that will solidify George as a hero and Knight with a victory as conquering over Evil. So in Canto XI when the Knight and the Dragon fight, “two dayes incessantly: The third him overthrowes” one can not overlook the significance of the three: the holy trinity, the divine number.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 8:39 am and is filed under English 381: British Lit to 1800. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.