ABSTRACT
In his Observations on the Fairy Queen, Thomas Warton writes that ‘quest is a term properly belonging to romance, importing the expedition in which the knight is engaged, and which he is obliged to perform. It is a very common word with Spenser’ (1762, 2:166). In fact, Spenser does not use the word at all in FQ I or II, and in the later books (except VI) less often than adventure, which he uses in the Letter to Raleigh. Though, as Warton implies, the quest-a journey to accomplish a particular task or to find or regain some object-is essential to romance, it is also an essential element of much narrative literature. The occasion of the action in Homer’s Iliad is the rescue of Helen from the Trojans; Homer’s Odysseus struggles to return to his home and reestablish himself as head of his family and country; Moses and Virgil’s Aeneas search for new homelands; Christ seeks to redeem mankind; Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec first leaves Arthur’s court and then his own to seek adventure; Malory’s Sir Gareth sets out to free the Lady Lyones from the Red Knight; Ariosto’s Orlando searches for Angelica. The quest provides a reason for the action and motives for the actors, as it does in The Faerie Queene, where the narrative device of the quest is a central organizing principle.
