No More Learning

INFLUENCE OF THE NEW LEARNING. --Like Milton, Gray, and other English
poets, Spenser was a scholar familiar with the best in ancient and modern
literature. As to Spenser's specific indebtedness, though he owed much in
incident and diction to Chaucer's version of the _Romance of the Rose_ and
to Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, the great epic poets, Tasso and Ariosto,
should be given first place. The resemblance of passages in the _Faerie
Queene_ to others in the _Orlando Furioso_ and the _Jerusalem Delivered_ is
so striking that some have accused the English poet of paraphrasing and
slavishly borrowing from the two Italians. Many of these parallels are
pointed out in the notes. To this criticism, Mr. Saintsbury remarks: "Not,
perhaps, till the _Orlando_ has been carefully read, and read in the
original, is Spenser's real greatness understood. He has often, and
evidently of purpose, challenged comparison; but in every instance it will
be found that his beauties are emphatically his own. He has followed
Ariosto only as Vergil has followed Homer, and much less slavishly. "

The influence of the New Learning is clearly evident in Spenser's use of
_classical mythology_. Greek myths are placed side by side with Christian
imagery and legends. Like Dante, the poet did not consider the Hellenic
doctrine of sensuous beauty to be antagonistic to the truths of religion.
There is sometimes an incongruous confusion of classicism and mediaevalism,
as when a magician is seen in the house of Morpheus, and a sorcerer goes to
the realm of Pluto. Spenser was guided by a higher and truer sense of
beauty than the classical purists know.

A very attractive element of his classicism is his _worship of beauty_.
The
Greek conception of beauty included two forms--the sensuous and the
spiritual. So richly colored and voluptuous are his descriptions that he
has been called the painters' poet, "the Rubens," and "the Raphael of the
poets. " As with Plato, Spenser's idea of the spiritually beautiful includes
the true and the good. Sensuous beauty is seen in the forms of external
nature, like the morning mist and sunshine, the rose gardens, the green
elders, and the quiet streams. His ideal of perfect sensuous and spiritual
beauty combined is found in womanhood. Such a one is Una, the dream of the
poet's young manhood, and we recognize in her one whose soul is as fair as
her face--an idealized type of a woman in real life who calls forth all our
love and reverence.

3. INTERPRETATION OF THE ALLEGORY. --In the sixteenth century it was the
opinion of Puritan England that every literary masterpiece should not only
give entertainment, but should also teach some moral or spiritual lesson.
"No one," says Mr. Patee, "after reading Spenser's letter to Raleigh, can
wander far into Spenser's poem without the conviction that the author's
central purpose was didactic, almost as much as was Bunyan's in _Pilgrim's
Progress. _" Milton doubtless had this feature of the _Faerie Queene_ in
mind when he wrote in _Il Penseroso_:--

"And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
Of forests and enchantments drear,
_Where more is meant than meets the ear_. "

That the allegory of the poem is closely connected with its aim and ethical
tendency is evident from the statement of the author that "the generall end
therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in
vertuous and gentle discipline. Which for that I conceived should be most
plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historical fiction, the
which the most part of men delight to read, rather for varietie of matter
then for profite of the ensample. " The _Faerie Queene_ is, therefore,
according to the avowed purpose of its author, a poem of culture. Though it
is one of the most highly artistic works in the language, it is at the same
time one of the most didactic.