ALLEGORY

In The Faerie Queene, Spenser used allegory as a literary devices. Edmund Spenser is one of the greatest writers during Elizabethan period whose valuable contributions fashioned a new tradition in English literature.

He is also one of the initiators of the Renaissance movement in English literature.

Therefore, in The Faerie Queene, Spenser used an allegorical romance which symbolized the moral and spiritual journey of an individual through innumerable temptations of sins towards the ultimate attainment of glory and truth. The poem thus has a serious purpose behind its fanciful characters, settings and events.

The characters in the poems have an allegorical significance since they represent an abstract thoughts.

For example:

The Fairy Queen or Gloriana represent Queen Elizabeth.

The "proud Paynim king" whom she is fighting must be either the pope or a Catholic king; and the enemy is the Roman Church.

žRedcrosse is again established as the hero of Protestantism against Catholicism.

žSpenser’s time: England now is Protestant, the Catholic Church is still powerful.
žRedcrosse will be united with Una only when the battle against false religion is over. He also symbolize as the Embodiment of Holiness, piety, and true religion (Protestantism).

Lady Una stands for truth, goodness and wisdom. 

Her parents symbolize humanity and the dragon represents the evil.

The mission of Holiness is to champion the cause of Truth and regain the right of human race, held by subjection by the mighty force of Evil.

Duessa which symbolize as Catholic

Queen Elizabeth I, Spenser used Gloriana or Fairy Queen to represent her.

Illustration of Errour (fake religion/catholic) and Redcrosse (true religion/ protestant)

Illustration of the battle between the dragon (Evil) and Redcrosse(truth)

During the English Reformation, the people had defeated “false religion” (Catholicism) and embraced “true religion” (Protestantism/Anglicanism).

In this poems, So Red Cross must defeat villains who mimic the falsehood of the Roman Church. In the course of his mission he and Una come upon various manifestations of evil. The first encounter is with monster Errour. The monster Errour allegorically stands for all sorts of mistakes which every individual makes in the course of his life. The fight of the Red Cross Knight with the monster Error symbolizes the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism. The books and papers vomited by Error allude to the offensive pamphlets directed against Queen Elizabeth by the Roman Catholics.

The Red Cross Knight may able to defeat these obvious and disgusting errors, but until he is united to the truth he is totally lost and can be easily deceived. This deceit is arranged by Archimago, who symbolizes the hypocrisy of Papacy. When Truth and Holiness are separated, Hypocrisy gets the chance to mislead Holiness. The separation of Truth from Holiness symbolizes the danger of the English Church against the hypocrisy and plots of the Roman Catholicis

Reference: Retrieved from http://www.josbd.com/the-faerie-queene-is-a-religious-allegory/