Season 4 Podcast 81 Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, Canto 1 A, Episode 1 “The Full Armor of God.”

Season 4 Podcast 81 Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, Canto 1 A, Episode 1 “The Full Armor of God.” Having finished John Milton’s Paradise Lost, I shall now embark on Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen. As with Milton I give credit and thanks to the Guttenberg Press for making the book available free for all to read. If you haven’t discovered Guttenberg Press, let me encourage you to type it in your search engine. You will find countless books that are in the public domain. The Guttenberg Press is amazing in its comprehensiveness, its professionalism, and its use of the electronic media. I shall begin this series of podcasts by having Linda read excerpts from a letter written by Spenser to Sir Walter Raleigh. Spenser explains his purpose in writing the books of The Faerie Queen. In many instances throughout this series on the Faerie Queene I have modernized the language for your convenience. Though the English language by Spenser’s time had evolved to more modern English as illustrated by Shakespeare, still it has the strong flavor of Middle English, perhaps in keeping with the period of his fantastical tale. Edmund Spenser was born in 1552 in London and died January 13, 1599, at the young age of 47. He is a contemporary of William Shakespeare. The general end therefore of all the book, is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline…. I labor to portray in Arthur, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private moral virtues, as Aristotle hath devised: which if I find to be well accepted, I may be perhaps encouraged to frame the other part of politick virtues in his person, after he came to be king…. Merlin delivered to be brought up, (so soon as he was borne of the Lady Igrayne) to have seen in a dream or vision the Faerie Queen, with whose excellent beauty ravished, he awaking, resolved to seek her out: and so, being by Merlin armed, and by Timon thoroughly instructed, he went to seek her forth in Faery land. In that Faery Queen I mean Glory in my general intention: but in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our sovereign the Queen, and her kingdom in Faery land…. So in the person of Prince Arthur, I set forth magnificence in particular, which virtue, for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and contains in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the deeds of Arthur appliable to the virtue, which I write of in that book. But of the twelve other virtues I make XII other knights the patrons, for the more variety of the historic: Of which these three books contain three. 2 RONThis series of Podcasts are from Book One entitled “The Legend of the Knight of the Red Cross, or of Holiness.” The Red Cross Knight exemplifies holiness because no one else could fight the final battle against evil exemplified by a fierce dragon. However, when we first meet the Red Cross Knight, though he is valiant, he is foolhardy and clumsy and ill prepared to meet the Dragon. Of course, we are reminded of the Dragon described in the Book of Revelation.“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.”