'Full of the makers guile': New polysemic possibilities for Archimago, Malengine, and Dolon in 'The Faerie Queene' (Edmund Spenser)

One of the benefits of recent Reformation studies has been a re-examination of the role of the Council of Trent in European affairs of the late sixteenth century. This dissertation seeks to take a closer look at the reforming council and its influence on Edmund Spenser and his greatest work, The Faerie Queene.; There is much that is valid in the concept of “Protestant Poetics,” which attempts to isolate the religious fervor of the reformed poets and demonstrate that fervor in the works of poets such as Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and Edmund Spenser. This position not only presumes a new poetic stance stemming from the Reformation, but also a mortally wounded Catholic Church that no longer has an influence on international religious affairs. I attempt to show that the Council of Trent (1545–1563) not only pumped new vitality into the Catholic Church, but in threatening the nacient Protestant confessions, the Council's results became the topics of allegorical representation in several English works.; In The Faerie Queene, for example, Spenser is very much concerned with present historical occasions: the Babington Plot, the Spanish Armada, the excommunication of the queen, and the Jesuit attempt to re-convert England. I believe that some of these missionary priests appear in Spenser's poem, particularly as Archimago in book I, and as Dolon and Malengine in book V. Book I appears to present Archimago as the pope, perhaps even Pius V. This pope is responsible for polluting the minds of English Protestants with false doctrine. In book V, Dolon and Malengine actually attempt to kill the queen and steal Protestants, making them dangerous in a different way. In this dissertation, the history and theology of the Reformation and sixteenth century politics illuminate new allegorical possibilities in The Faerie Queene.