The geography of the Faerie Queene

Abstract

The task has been to show that Spenser imagined Faeryland according to his own travel experience in England. The geography of The Faerie Queene 1 - the only book of the poem not set in the South, and the only book without coastlines - reveals Spenser's experience and interest in the North and the Northern Rebellion of 1569. We explore The Faerie Queene 1 (possibly quite extensively planned and drafted before the poet set sail for Ireland in August 1580) as a discrete geography, finding it quite unlike the terrains of the books which follow. This is so because Spenser almost certainly had never gained any substantive travel experience in the South West, where are found the coastlines he came to know during his brief and prolonged returns to England during 1580-96.\ud \ud Written during Spenser's life in Ireland, The Faerie Queene 2-6 is enacted on English soil where, I argue, Spenser's journeys to and from the South West - the coastlines, forestry, settlements and towns - can often be traced and mapped in the journeys of the poem's travellers. The travels of Artegall, Britomart, Guyon and Calidore establish the western terrain and the western and southern coasts of the poem. Such is the importance of the travels of these knights to the poem's geography, that we can establish Artegall's journey to the West Coast, and Britomart's journey to the same place. Britomart knows the coast to which Artegall is bound is the place where she will find him. Distractions during the journey keep him from the 'appointed tide' and Britomart having arrived at Artegall's intended coast, journeys inland from the Rich Strond (Plymouth) to find him - somewhere along the western route between London and Plymouth