King Arthur's Role in Rescuing the Red Cross Knight
This essay examines why Edmund Spenser assigns King Arthur the role of rescuing the Red Cross Knight from Orgoglio in The Faerie Queene. Drawing on Arthur's symbolic identity as the embodiment of British royal virtue, ancient faith, and national tradition, the essay argues that Arthur's intervention represents a triumph of righteous faith over brute force. The analysis traces how Spenser uses Arthur's blinding shield, Una's royal lineage, and Elizabeth I's self-fashioning as a fairy queen to construct a Protestant mythological framework in which England's pre-Catholic past is restored through Elizabethan rule.
- Introduction: Arthur as Symbol of British Tradition: Arthur embodies British royal virtue and Elizabethan myth
- The Red Cross Knight and the Quest for Holiness: Red Cross Knight's quest for truth and holiness
- Una's Royal Lineage and Her Role as Intermediary: Una bridges England's past and present glory
- Arthur's Victory: Right Over Might: Arthur's shield defeats Orgoglio through righteous faith
- Conclusion: Elizabeth, Arthur, and England's Restored Faith: Elizabeth restores England's pre-Catholic faith through Arthurian myth
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds the literary argument in its historical and political context — specifically, Elizabeth I's deliberate self-fashioning as a Protestant "fairy queen" and the cultural resonance of the Arthurian legend in Tudor England.
- Uses direct quotations from the poem to support each analytical claim, allowing Spenser's own language to carry evidential weight.
- Connects multiple allegorical figures (Arthur, Una, the Red Cross Knight) into a coherent symbolic framework rather than analyzing each in isolation.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The essay demonstrates allegorical reading — interpreting literary characters not merely as fictional individuals but as embodiments of abstract values (holiness, faith, royal virtue) and historical forces (Tudor Protestantism, England's pre-Catholic past). This technique requires the writer to move fluidly between the text's narrative surface and its political or theological subtext.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by establishing Arthur's cultural significance in Elizabethan England, then introduces the Red Cross Knight's quest and its symbolic stakes. It next brings in Una as the figure who bridges past glory and present need, before analyzing the climactic victory over Orgoglio. The conclusion synthesizes these strands into a unified argument about Elizabethan Protestant myth-making. The structure follows the poem's own logic while layering interpretive commentary at each stage.
Introduction: Arthur as Symbol of British Tradition
Even during Edmund Spenser's time, the name of King Arthur was the embodiment of British royal values and British traditions of true national faith, law, and justice. Arthur was considered a much-respected British folk hero and the king of better days, long in England's past — better days that Elizabeth's reign of prosperity would hopefully bring into being again. Elizabeth created her own myth of being a fairy queen, the monarch who brought Enlightened Protestantism rather than Catholicism to England. In the poem, Arthur has been given a vision of the queen, and he is searching for her when he steps in to rescue the Red Cross Knight.
The Red Cross Knight and the Quest for Holiness
The Red Cross Knight, fighting for truth and England's Holiness, is armed with faith in Christ, an image of a bloody cross, and the inspiration of Gloriana herself: "That greatest Gloriana to him gaue, / That greatest Glorious Queene of Faerie lond." With this charge, the Red Cross Knight sets forth to slay the dragon in his fairy queen's name. Edmund Spenser constructs the Knight's quest as inseparable from his Protestant faith — holiness is not merely a personal virtue but a national one, bound up with England's divine mission under Elizabeth.
Una's Royal Lineage and Her Role as Intermediary
The Red Cross Knight is accompanied by a loyal and beautiful woman who represents both England's past and its emerging glory. Una is of "descent from Royall lynage came / of ancient Kings and Queenes, that had of yore / Their scepters stretcht from East to Westerne shore." It is Una who meets with Arthur and brings him to the rescue of her Knight, making her the crucial intermediary between England's ancient heroic tradition and its Elizabethan present.
Conclusion: Elizabeth, Arthur, and England's Restored Faith
Arthur's victory shows that England's past was not Catholic, but pre-Catholic — an England of a purer faith that Elizabeth seeks to restore as England's Faerie Queen. Spenser's allegory thus positions Elizabethan Protestantism not as a novelty, but as a recovery of something ancient and authentic, legitimized by the very legend of King Arthur himself.
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