The Faerie Queene is an epic poem, consisting of more than 4,000 stanzas and written over a period of ten years. It is one of the longest poems ever written in English, and one of the most famous epics to come out of the early modern period (second only to John Milton's Paradise Lost, published in 1667).
The genre of the epic originated from antiquity, with the literature of Ancient Greece and Rome serving as the central inspiration behind early modern English literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This period of English history was also known as the Renaissance, a term that means "rebirth." What was being reborn specifically during this time was the artistic and cultural efforts of pre-modern Greek and Roman writers, philosophers, and scientists. As such, early modern English epics drew on the works of writers like Homer – author of The Iliad and The Odyssey – and Virgil – author of The Aeneid – in order to craft their own quasi-mythic stories about the heroes of English history.
The Faerie Queene is one such story, as it traces through its allegorical tale the founding of Britain and celebrates Queen Elizabeth I, the reigning monarch at the time Spenser was writing. Spenser's contribution to the genre of the English epic is significant because it features a major departure from the epic conventions of antiquity: rather than feature heroes who must eschew romance and personal desire in order to perform their heroic duty, The Faerie Queene embraces and centralizes the relationship between romance and heroism throughout. Those who strive toward heroic endeavors – such as Redcrosse – do so with their romantic interests as inspiration, and as such Spenser's complex allegorical characters are a far cry from the warrior-only heroes of Ancient Greek and Roman epic like Odysseus, Achilles, and Aeneas.
This defining feature of the English epic is likely due, at least in part, to the incorporation of Christian themes into the text: The Faerie Queene allegorizes Christianity, Christian virtue, and Jesus Christ himself in order to emphasize the primacy of the Protestant Church. This allegory therefore introduces the important concepts of love, mercy, and goodness, all of which are threaded throughout the poem by way of various characters and their relationships to one another.
