The Role of Vision in The Faerie Queene

This paper examines the role of sight and the idea of the visual sense in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. It reads the poem as an extended meditation on vision and its ambivalent relationship with truth and knowledge. Spenser’s poem demonstrates a deep suspicion of visual surfaces, and this anti-scopic drive often dwells on the deceptive visions that often come in the way of proper understanding. This becomes particularly apparent with The Faerie Queene’s representation of women and sexual desire. The article offers a critical account of the poem’s investment in the idea of vision and visual objects.