Britton, Dennis. "Race in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/race-in-spensers-the-faerie-queene. [Date accessed].

Race in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene

How allegory becomes a tool of racialization in The Faerie Queene.

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Dennis Britton
University of British Columbia

Those who insist on reading Spenser's The Faerie Queene as only an anti-Catholic allegory are missing a crucial truth: the epic genre had already made Muslims apt figures for his allegory, and his allegory only helps further racialize Muslims. Race and allegory work similarly—they both require that bodies become abstractions, and that bodies and their features become signifiers of virtues or vices. While the genre of epic has significantly defined what Muslims are in the white European imagination, Spenser’s allegory actually helps make racist tropes “stick” to Muslim bodies.

Further learning

Essay

Spenser and his racializing influences

Comparing episodes from The Faerie Queene with episodes from the works that inspired Spenser, in particular excerpts from Ariosto’s and Tasso’s works, is a productive way to draw attention to how racialization travels and mutates across national traditions.

Dennis Britton
Activity

The epic assignment

Dennis Britton's epic assignment asks students to collaboratively write an epic poem, considering the possibilities and limitations of the epic genre for defining who we are—or want to be—in our present moment. 

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