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The study inquires into the dynamic relationship between Protestantism and culture in The Faerie Oueene. The American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr makes penetrating analyses of the relationship between man's cultural potentials and the insights of Protestant Christianity which greatly illuminate how Spenser searches for a comprehensive religious, ethical, political, and social vision for the Christian community of Protestant England. But Spenser maintains the tension between culture and Christianity to the end, refusing to offer a merely coherent system of principles based on the doctrine of Christianity.

An examination of the stanzas of The Faerie Queene reveals a structural complexity that prosodists have not previously discovered. In the prosody of Spenser's epic, two formal prosodic orders function simultaneously. One is the visible structure that has long been acknowledged and studied, eight decasyllabic lines and an alexandrine bound into a coherent entity by a set meter and rhyme scheme. The second is an order made apparent by an oral reading and which involves speech stresses, syntactical groupings, caesura placements, and enjambments. In an audible reading, elements are revealed that oppose the structural integrity of the visible form. The lines cease to be iambic, because most lines contain some irregularities that are incongruent with the meter. The visible structure is further counterpointed by Spenser's free use of caesura and frequent employment of enjambment to create a constantly varying structure of different line lengths in the audible form. This study also examines precedents that Spenser could have known for the union of music and poetry. English lyric poetry written for existing melodies is analyzedand the French experiments with quantitative verse supported with musical settings are discussed. Special emphasis is given to the musical associations of the Orlando furioso, particularly its relation to the tradition of singing narrative poetry to folk melodies. Internal support for the thesis that Spenser deliberately employed musical techniques in his prosody comes from his use of the Tudor masque in the structure of the epic. Evidence is offered to show that the processional masque is the unifying foundation for the whole of The Faerie Queene, A characteristic of the sixteenth-century masque was its combination of art forms, and Spenser found a method for integrating the arts of music and literature. Spenser uses musical techniques in the prosody that he could have expected would echo musical experiences of his reader, thereby creating the accompanying music. The musical techniques not only unify the individual stanzas; they also integrate the prosody with the larger organizing plan of the epic,

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My thesis is comprised of two articles, titled "Interpreting Britomart's Encounters with Art: The Cyclic Nature of Ekphrasis in Spenser's Faerie Queene III," and "Picture This, Imagine That: Teaching Visual Literacy in the Disciplines." The purpose of my first article is to argue that Edmund Spenser uses ekphrasis in his epic poem The Faerie Queene to draw comparisons between the regenerative natures of both art and life. I support my argument by examining three ekphrastic instances experienced by Britomart, the central knight figure of Book III of the poem: a magic mirror forged by Merlin, a tapestry telling the story of Venus and Adonis, and a statue of Hermaphrodite recollected by the narrator. Through close reading and the assistance of Murrary Krieger's ekphrastic principle of "stillness," I support that all three visual art objects underline and associate with the themes of cyclic regeneration in Britomart's quest, and ultimately reveal Britomart to be an exemplary reader of art for readers to emulate. The purpose of my second article is to develop an economically, technologically, and theoretically accessible framework for teaching visual literacy in the disciplines. To accomplish my goal, I extrapolate from Classical rhetoric's pedagogic use of ekphrasis as the first systematized method for teaching visual conceptualization, and adapt and extend it to suit the present needs of students in the 21st-Century classroom. To communicate the urgency of the need for students to enrich proficiency at visual literacy, I provide a literature review that narrates the growing need expressed by visual literacy scholars, composition theorists, visualization theorists and specialists, and the library community for an overarching visual literacy framework that provides scaffolding and common language for students. To demonstrate the framework's usability, I apply it to three disciplinary visuals: a World War 1-era poster by the American Red Cross, a museum installation exhibit for communicating marine science to the public, and the Alpha Helix model created by Linus Pauling. I also offer suggestions for classroom practices and activities for using the framework across K-12 through university-level teaching. / Graduation date: 2013

Book Six of The Faerie Queene deals with the complexities of courtesy in a socially changing world. Calidore, the protagonist of Book Six, sets out to defeat the Blatant Beast, the chief enemy of courtesy, but abandons his quest midway through the book in order to live the shepherds’ life. Despite the ethical ambiguity associated with Calidore’s abandoning his quest, this pastoral setting should enable him to deepen his understanding of the nature and practice of courtesy. However, Calidore is unable to grow, and the poet essentially gives up on his own poetic quest.

This dissertation focuses on how a series of major characters in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (Prince Arthur, Britomart, Duessa, Artegall, and those characters that figure forth the poet's sovereign, Elizabeth I) enhance a reader's appreciation of the epic's complex topical allegory and its moral implications. By closely interpreting the respective functions and narratives of these characters, and additionally examining some of Spenser's main techniques of character development, I propose that the above figures both articulate and underscore central aspects of the poet's politically encomiastic and critical agendas. These specific techniques of character development include composition, fragmentation, and metamorphosis (both positive, as in the case of Britomart, as well as pejorative, such as in the case of the wicked enchantress Duessa). By thus investigating the topical import of The Faerie Queene 's allegory, I further demonstrate both how the epic's major characters illustrate contemporary Elizabethan moral and political ideals and, in certain cases, exemplify serious perceived threats to those ideals. The dissertation also indicates that the poet consistently and cautiously treads a fine line between allegorically depicting controversial historical issues and events (towards which at least some Elizabethans were ambivalent), and praising Elizabeth and her successful governing abilities. This crucial tension, reflected in the epic's diverse plots, invests the topical aspects of the poem with much of their complexity. Yet, given that Spenser's main aims included portraying his queen as a model monarch, while simultaneously enhancing concepts of English nationhood, his criticisms of her government and policies remain tentative. Loyalty to the Tudor sovereign and to the predominant Protestant faith in England are fundamental to the epic, for the poet assumes they provide his audience with an essential foundation for personal moral "self-fashioning." Eclectica

This Master’s Thesis seeks to explain the internal conflicts faced by Guyon, the titular hero of Book II of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Starting with Thomas Aquinas’ designations of the sensitive versus the intellectual appetite, I show that Guyon struggles to maintain the dominance of his intellectual appetite as he puts his vaunted temperance to a series of tests. The hero manages to appease his sensitive appetite through the vice of curiositas, yet the power of his sensitive appetite demands dramatic and violent acts of repression to quash it in Mammon’s Cave and in the Bower of Bliss. Guyon’s intellectual appetite to maintain temperance in Gloriana’s kingdom, aided by the guidance of the Palmer, leads Guyon to succeed in his quest yet reveals the incompatibility between temperance and the desirous and glory-seeking life of a knight errant.

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