The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene

by

Edmund Spenser

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Faerie Queene makes teaching easy.

The Faerie Queene: Book II: Proem Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
The narrator admits that he doesn’t know where faerie land is exactly, but he talks about other regions that were recently discovered like Peru, the Amazon, and Virginia. He says that he’ll now tell the story of a good Faerie knight called Sir Guyon.
The setting of the poem is deliberately a little obscure, mixing elements of fantasy and history. Here, the narrator basically just tells the reader not to worry about it, since lots of new places get discovered all the time.
Themes
Virtue, Allegory, and Symbolism Theme Icon
British Identity and Nationalism Theme Icon
Protestantism Theme Icon
Literary Devices