There is sometimes an incongruous confusion of classicism and mediævalism,
as when a magician is seen in the house of Morpheus, and a sorcerer goes to
the realm of Pluto. Spenser was guided by a higher and truer sense of
beauty than the classical purists know.

A very attractive element of his classicism is his _worship of beauty_. The
Greek conception of beauty included two forms--the sensuous and the
spiritual. So richly colored and voluptuous are his descriptions that he
has been called the painters' poet, "the Rubens," and "the Raphael of the
poets." As with Plato, Spenser's idea of the spiritually beautiful includes
the true and the good. Sensuous beauty is seen in the forms of external
nature, like the morning mist and sunshine, the rose gardens, the green
elders, and the quiet streams. His ideal of perfect sensuous and spiritual
beauty combined is found in womanhood. Such a one is Una, the dream of the
poet's young manhood, and we recognize in her one whose soul is as fair as
her face--an idealized type of a woman in real life who calls forth all our
love and reverence.

3. INTERPRETATION OF THE ALLEGORY.--In the sixteenth century it was the
opinion of Puritan England that every literary masterpiece should not only
give entertainment, but should also teach some moral or spiritual lesson.
"No one," says Mr. Patee, "after reading Spenser's letter to Raleigh, can
wander far into Spenser's poem without the conviction that the author's
central purpose was didactic, almost as much as was Bunyan's in _Pilgrim's
Progress._" Milton doubtless had this feature of the _Faerie Queene_ in
mind when he wrote in _Il Penseroso_:--

"And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,