Phaon (fiction) - Structure and Language - Theological Structure

Theological Structure

In Elizabethan England, no subject was more familiar to writers than theology. Elizabethans learned to embrace religious studies in petty school, where they “read from selections from the Book of Common Prayer and memorized Catechisms from the Scriptures” (Whitaker 151). This influence is evident in Spenser’s text, as demonstrated in the moral allegory of Book 1. Here, allegory is organized in the traditional arrangement of Renaissance theological treatises and confessionals. While reading Book 1, audiences first encounter original sin, justification and the nature of sin before analyzing the church and the sacraments (Whitaker 153). Despite this pattern, Book 1 is not a theological treatise; within the text, “moral and historical allegories intermingle” and the reader encounters elements of romance (Whitaker 154). However, Spenser’s method is not “a rigorous and unyielding allegory,” but “a compromise among conflicting elements” (Whitaker 154). Book 1 of The Faerie Queene’s discussion of the path to salvation begins with original sin and justification, skipping past initial matters of God, the Creeds, and Adam’s fall from grace (Whitaker 154). This literary decision is pivotal because these doctrines “center the fundamental theological controversies of the Reformation” (Whitaker 154).

Spenser's language in The Faerie Queene, as in The Shepheardes Calender, is deliberately archaic, though the extent of this has been exaggerated by critics who follow Ben Jonson's dictum, that "in affecting the ancients Spenser writ no language." Allowing that Jonson's remark may only apply to the Calendar, Bruce Robert McElderry, Jr., states, after a detailed investigation of the FQ's diction, that Jonson's statement "is a skillful epigram; but it seriously misrepresents the truth if taken at anything like its face value." The number of archaisms used in the poem are not overwhelming—one source reports thirty-four in Canto One of Book One, that is, thirty-four words out of a total 4,200 words, less than one percent. According to McElderry, language does not account for the poem's archaic tone: "The subject-matter of The Faerie Queene is itself the most powerful factor in creating the impression of archaism."

Examples of medieval archaisms (in morphology and diction) include:

• Infinitive in –en: "Vewen," 1. 201, 'to view.'
• Prefix y- retained in participle: "Yclad," 1. 58, 254, 'clad,' 'clothed.'
• Adjective: "Combrous," 1. 203, 'harassing,' 'troublesome.'
• Verb: "Keepe," 1. 360, 'heed,' 'give attention to.'