Epic poetry is one of the oldest forms that come down to us from the ancient. It is equal to a tragedy. Aristotle in his famous book, Poetics, and Horace in his famous book Art of Poetry, defines an epic is a long narrative poem dealing with heroic achievements and eternal human problems with serious and earnest grand style with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
But according to Dixon: an epic is a long narrative poem, organic in structure, dealing with great characters, grand style, grand theme and grand episodes as the history shows that Homer, Virgil, and Tasso wrote best epics. But the Faerie Queen is considered the best romantic epic in English literature.
In an epic poem, the poet imitates a single action of a single man, the hero carries a historical importance and there is a unity in structure. In this respect the Faerie Queen is full of many actions but there is an attempt to give it a unity through the actions of the hero. In the Faerie Queen the didactic purpose of the epic is accepted. Actually the business of poetry is to teach and delight in the best way. Its teaching is to express through the actions of the main figure and its delight is to create through the management of the story.
Both the elements we may see in the Faerie Queen that teaches and delight to the readers and critics. Its plot construction and varieties of characters maintain interest while reading the poem. On the other hand, it is an historical fact described by Spenser in the book with the help of fictitious episodes.
Spenser’s choice of material from the Arthurian romances is the best choice for the epic what he wanted to write for the readers. Actually Spenser wanted to introduce King Arthur and his life story in the Faerie Queen with the help of group of stories morally, spiritually and politically. As we see The Red Cross Knight stands for King Arthur in the allegory of Spenser. In the Faerie Queen the poet emphasizes not on the activities of one man, but on his achievements also.
Critics make doubts about the hero, Prince Arthur, but Arthur should have slain the Dragon, not the Red Cross Knight. On the other hand, Arthur should have destroyed Acracic, not Sir Gayon. Arthur should have dispelled the enchantment of Bussane not Britomart.
On the other hand, Upton claims Prince Arthur to be the hero of the Faerie Queen. To make the Faerie Queen a pure epic he uses epic similes so that the picture of the characters appears clearly on the readers’ minds. As the text shows in these lines the poet exposes the hypocrisy of Duessa:
“The man, that pities all this while
His moanful plight, swallowed up unaware
Forgetful of his own that minds an other’s care
So wept Duessa until eventide”
Beside it he uses supernatural elements in the Faerie Queen to make it true and classical epic. He uses supernatural machinery of dreams and fancies to create effects on the readers, as from the cave of Morpheus
the agents went to take dreams. But the Lord of sleep was resting. His sending purpose was clear:
“Hither, quoth he, Me Archimago sent
He that the stubborn spirits can easily tame
He bids thee to him, then can delude the sleeper sent’
Here Watson says that The Faerie Queen is also full of romantic elements it cannot be denied that it is romantic epic poem carrying all the elements of a pure classical epic model. It was also a fact that the writers of the epic in the Elizabethan age were forced to show morality in the epic story. The unity of the poem that is an important characteristic of an epic is not well maintained in the Faerie Queen. Its structure is loose and rambling. As the story advances Spenser enters into digression in order to create variety of adventures of the hero.
To sum up, keeping all these points mentioned above it can be said that the Faerie Queen is not a pure classical epic poem like home and Virgil’s epic poems. But it is a romantic epic poem bases on style and method of Arsiosto, Orlando and Furioso but different from Oriosto in its moral tone.
As Neel Dodge says, “ He had twelve private moral virtues, and each to be embodied in the knight to show him more civilized and brave” But in actual life it does not so as Spenser has shown in the Faerie Queen all the qualities in one person. In spite of having all these moral and physical characteristics he is deceived by the magician in different shapes. So it is a romantic epic poem not classical epic poem
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I haven't read it yet. But from your blog post it appears to be quite interesting. And as you have already mentioned the elements of The Faerie Queen which compare it to an epic then an epic it is. There should be no questioning on it as such.