F. Queene

intended for it to be an allegory. An allegory is a literary device used

to give a literary work two different meanings. One meaning is easily

understood, but the second meaning is expressed through a more subtle

approach. In a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, Edmund Spenser wrote, “Sir

knowing how doubtfully all Allegories may be construed, and this booke of

mine, which I have entituled the Faery Queene, being a continued Allegory,

or dark conceit...” (514). In the letter, he is explaining to the readers

that it is an allegory, so that they will look for a hidden meaning to

objects in his epic. Later in the letter, Spenser went on to tell that

each of the twelve books that he intended to write would symbolize one

virtue. Then combined as a whole, they would represent a truly noble

person. However, only six of the twelve were completed. “Each book of The

Faerie Queene has as its centre a hero or heroine whose task is to learn a

particular virtue by facing, falling before but ultimately discovering how

to master, the specific vices which beset it” (Evans 143). The second book

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