Today we examine C.S. Lewis’s profound appreciation of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene in his Clarendon Press volume, Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century.
Lewis dedicates substantial space in the “Golden” section, particularly the chapter on Sidney and Spenser, spanning roughly pages 318 to 393 in the Oxford edition.
Lewis defines the Faerie Queen as etymologically and structurally sound. The Faerie Queene fuses medieval allegory—from the Latin allegoria, meaning “speaking otherwise”—with the Italian romantic epic. He coins the term “allegorical core” for each book: the House of Holiness in Book I, the House of Alma in Book II, the Garden of Adonis in Book III, the Temple of Venus in Book IV, the Church of Isis in Book V, and Mount Acidale in Book VI. These cores disentangle the book’s central virtue from surrounding adventures.
Lewis insists the allegory is radical and organic, not a puzzle or disguise. “Symbols are the natural speech of the soul.” He downplays strict historical roman-à-clef readings, preferring “fugitive historical allusions.” Arthur embodies Aristotelian magnanimity or magnificence, while Gloriana represents the “idole of her maker’s great magnificence.”
Stylistically, Lewis praises Spenser’s Spenserian stanza—nine lines with the rhyme scheme ababbcbcc, the final line an iambic hexameter or alexandrine. This invention creates ordered exuberance, melodic richness, and a harmonious atmosphere unique to Faerie Land.
He argues the poem’s unity derives not from plot but from its invented milieu: Faerie Land itself, where multiplicity of stories supports rather than impairs coherence. Reading it requires childlike surrender: “It is of course much more than a fairy-tale, but unless we can enjoy it as a fairy-tale first of all, we shall not really care for it.” The door is low; “no prig can be a Spenserian.”
Ultimately, Lewis calls the experience “invigorating” and “psychotherapeutic.” “To read him is to grow in mental health.” He acknowledges occasional dull patches but celebrates Spenser’s simplicity, rectitude, and embodiment of common wisdom through moving images.
In sum, Lewis presents The Faerie Queene as a health-giving palace of the imagination, bridging medieval and Renaissance sensibilities through radical allegory and melodic form. It rewards receptive reading with profound moral and imaginative vitality.
