Body As A Moral Allegory In Spenser’s The Faerie Queene Ⅰ-Ⅲ

As a vast epic,Spenser’s Faerie Queene is a pivotal work in the history of English literature and has great significance in later English literature.The work covers a wide range of topics and profound ideas and reflects the economic,political,religious,cultural,and social order of the Elizabeth I period in a profound way.Allegory in poetry has long been of interest to a wide range of domestic and international scholars.For a long time,critics have explored and analyzed the allegories in the context of the historical,economic,and religious reforms of the time and argued that the moral images created by Spenser serve the current situation.However,less attention has been paid to how the body in the poem shapes the moral image.The body is the material basis and prerequisite for carrying morality.The Renaissance still inherited the traditional concept of the Middle Ages,where the body as a material carrier was always despised by morality,but humanism was prevalent at that time,and the body also received great attention.The exploration of the body is an effective way to look into the moral order and social problems of the time.This thesis has explored the moral allegory in Books I-III of The Faerie Queene from the perspective of the bodies.The poet portrays many different bodies,the bodies of different characters are mostly different,and Spenser metaphorically places moral fables within these bodies.As the adventure goes on,these bodies are shown to the reader in different forms,either embodying the beauty of harmony,being diseased and terminally ill,or needing fancy clothes to hide their ugliness.These bodies in their various forms are an important means of expressing the poet’s moral allegory.The introduction of this thesis focuses on the historical background of the poem’s writing,the poet’s life experience,and the research on this work by scholars from home and abroad.By sorting out the body types according to the moral images shown by them,this thesis divides the bodies in poetry into holy and pure bodies,secular bodies,and foul bodies.The first chapter elaborates on the virtues of chastity,belief in the true Christ,and the harmonious beauty displayed by the holy body.There is a range of bodies in the poem that are harmonious and beautiful.Belphoebe and her twin sisters typify two forms of chastity in the poem,and Britomart is a combination of these two forms in which the poet used the body to allegorize the virtue of chastity in her body.Una,who symbolizes truth,allegorizes faith in the true Christ.The castle of Alma and the Faerie Queen are typical harmonious bodies.These bodies embody the Christian moral virtues of chastity,temperance,and faith in God.The second chapter focuses on the analysis of the image of the foul body and its moral corruption in the poem.Based on the historical context of his time,the poet portrays Catholicism,Islam,and the rest of the body dominated by desire diseased on the outside and inside.Some of these bodies are diseased and ugly,and some are controlled by distorted desires.These various bodies reveal their morally corrupt images,they trample on ethics,break rules,and pose a serious threat to order.It reflects the poet’s anxiety about the construction of moral order in his country in the face of Catholicism and Islam.The third chapter focuses on the analysis of the secular bodies in poetry and the moral situation they face.In the poem,Redcrosse is compelled by an enchanter to abandon the truth,then he is tempted by Duessa to fall into the house of pride,and after escaping from it,he is defeated by the giant and imprisoned in a dungeon because he is weak.Guyon is lured into hell by Mammon after being separated from the old Palmer,and thus suffers physical damage and nearly loses his temperance due to the temptation of the enchantress Acrasia.The experience of Redcrosse and Guyon exemplifies the moral dilemma that the secular body can fall into after departing from divine grace.Prince Arthur starts his adventure in search of the Faerie Queene,and he appears in each knight’s adventures.He has all twelve virtues and is the glue that holds the story together.This shows how the poet pictured moral perfection.In conclusion,Spenser in The Faerie Queene defends Queen Elizabeth’s reign by giving different bodies moral allegories in order to construct a set of social and moral order and to right the name of England as a Protestant country.