English Literature / Unit 6 ENL 0521 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Allegory in Spenser: A Worked Reading
The idea
A Faerie Queene passage is answered on two levels, the story and what it stands for. First, follow the literal story: who travels, whom they meet, what happens. Second, name each figure's abstraction from the book's virtue and the figure's name: Redcrosse is Holiness, Una is truth and oneness, Duessa her deceptive double, Errour a monster of error. Third, read the action as an argument: when the knight leaves the true lady for the false one, the allegory says that holiness can be deceived by appearances. Fourth, check the historical layer the anchor reports, in which the true and false ladies are also the Protestant and Roman churches. Fifth, choose the answer that fits both levels, preferring the moral meaning when a question asks what a figure represents. Spenser's archaic diction and the nine-line stanza ending in a longer line confirm the source.
In practice
Story, abstraction, argument, history, both levels.
Where people slip
Every figure means something, but not everything has one meaning. The historical reading is the anchor's, so give it as one layer, not the only one.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for English Literature