Religion
The Faerie Queene was written during a time of religious and political controversy – the Reformation. After taking the throne following the death of her half-sister Mary, Elizabeth changed the official religion of the nation to Protestantism (“Mary” 687). The plot of book one is similar to John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments, which was about the prosecution of the Protestants and how Catholic rule was unjust. (McCabe 41) Spenser includes the controversy of Elizabethan church reform within the epic. Gloriana has godly English knights destroy Catholic continental power in books one and five (Heale 8). Spenser also embodies many of his villains with “the worst of what Protestants considered a superstitious Catholic reliance on deceptive images” (McCabe 39). He ends up showing us with the epic that all religions are unclear in some way, and that although we as humans strongly desire this clarity, it is impossible (McCabe 39).
Read more about this topic: The Faerie Queene
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Religion is a great force: the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don’t understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“By 1879, seven churches of various denominations were holding services, which led the local Chronicle to comment, “All have but one religion and one God in common; it is the Crucified Carbonate.””
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“In this great association we know no North, no South, no East, no West. This has been our pride for all these years. We have no political party. We never have inquired what anybody’s religion is. All we ever have asked is simply, “Do you believe in perfect equality for women?” This is the one article in our creed.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)