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That “Saluage Nation”: Contextualizing the Multitudes in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene

While early modern theology has long been used as a stable source for interpreting The Faerie Queene, this essay argues that both Spenser’s poem and that theology must be placed within their immediate historical and political context—the struggle to reinvigorate the Church of England after the Marian persecution. Reading Una’s encounters with Corceca and the satyrs (Book I) and Artegall’s conflict with the Gyant (Book V) alongside contemporary religious tracts demonstrates how Spenser’s poem reflects the difficulties England faced in attempting to reconstruct a Protestant religious polity. Images of the multitudes became politicized by both reformers and more conservative church officials, creating the potential for multiple interpretations of seemingly clear Biblical texts. The allegories of Spenser’s Fairie Queene thus must be read in light of these conflicts, revealing that meanings once deemed transparently clear actually depend in large part upon the reader’s own confessional allegiances.