ABSTRACT

In his major poetry Spenser devotes significant attention to symbolic portrayal of the contemporary world and to moral comment on its political and religious issues. This dimension of his poetry has generally been called the ‘historical allegory.’ The term is misleading, however, especially if it suggests to readers that such concerns are frequently expressed in topical allegories that parallel the moral allegory. In fact, Spenser more often refers to the contemporary world allusively, through momentary indications of a moral relationship between the poem and its political context. At certain points, particularly in the second half of The Faerie Queene, this concern for contemporary events and issues does grow into full-scale allegorization. But it is more accurate to speak of the historical dimension of Spenser’s poetry, a term that includes the full range of allusion, satire, symbolic characterization, historical catalogue, and topical allegory.