Spenser's Faerie queene: An interpretation

The aim I have set before me in this book is to give back to English readers the understanding of and delight in this great poet which thrilled his contemporaries and early successors.

The Faerie Queene was intended by its author to be a philosophical poem and was so regarded by his contemporaries and immediate successors, whose appreciation of it was so great.

Spenser's age was eclectic, and poets in all ages take from the thought of the time what is akin to their own inner world. For the consistency of a poetic philosophy is not the logical consistency of the professional philosopher. It is a harmony of emotional experience, not a train of syllogistic reasoning. Now Spenser discovers with the great Neo-Platonist Plotinus a natural affinity.