How great literature can change your life

Monday

In my faculty group’s discussion of Paradise Lost, member Ross MacDonald observed that, in Book II, Milton suddenly takes a surprise turn into Spenserian allegory. By this he meant that a story that has heretofore involved realistically drawn characters (Satan and his angels) suddenly veers into the kind of symbolic story that one encounters in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, with characters like Sin and Death.

I loved the observation, and a bonus was that, upon refreshing my memory of Spenser’s Arthurian tale, I came across an incident that works as an allegory of the grip that crazy conspiracy theories have on rightwing America. I have in mind Redcrosse Knight’s encounter with (as Spenser spells it) the monster Errour.

In the work, Redcrosse and his lady Una, who stands for the true religion (in Spenser’s mind, the unified Church of England) are riding through the countryside. She has been expelled from her kingdom and has turned to Redcrosse for help.

In the process of fighting for true faith, however, Redcrosse periodically loses his way. In the spirit of Spenserian allegory, I warn you that I’ll be using the story to capture how America, founded on the principle that all are created equal and have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, has also lost its way. I will be interpreting Errour as the right wingers’ embrace of authoritarianism, whether through suppressing the vote at home or singing the praise of autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Orban abroad. They claim to be patriots but are espousing ideas that are, well, unAmerican.

Early in the poem, Redcrosse finds himself rashly thinking that conquering Errour is easy. Indicating the difficulties to come, however, is that, like Dante, he finds himself lost in a labyrinthine wood:

When weening to returne, whence they did stray,
They cannot finde that path, which first was showne,
But wander too and fro in wayes unknowne,
Furthest from end then, when they neerest weene,
That makes them doubt their wits be not their owne:
So many pathes, so many turnings seene,
That which of them to take, in diverse doubt they been.

Redcrosse, arrogant in his righteousness, thinks he is proof against Errour and disregards warnings to avoid its cave. What he sees therein is a creature that is half woman (reminiscent of Eve), half serpent:

But full of fire and greedy hardiment,
The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide,
But forth unto the darksome hole he went,
And looked in: his glistring armor made
A litle glooming light, much like a shade,
By which he saw the ugly monster plaine,
Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,
But th’other halfe did womans shape retaine,
Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.

Errour in Spenser’s allegory would be the initial falling away from the true faith, say Catholic corruption. That straying, however, has led to a host of other errors, which are symbolized by Errour’s progeny:

                                   Of her there bred
A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed,
Sucking upon her poisnous dugs, each one
Of sundry shapes, yet all ill favored:
Soone as that uncouth light upon them shone,
Into her mouth they crept, and suddain all were gone.

I don’t know if we can call Donald Trump the true parent of QAnon and another whacky conspiracy theories, but his blatant disregard for truth may have had a hand in unleashing one nutty theory after another—in fact, conspiracies vie in outrageousness, from Democrats running pedophile kidnapping rings to Venezuelans compromising voting machines to Bill Gates putting microchips in Covid vaccines to Jews putting space lasers in outer space, etc., etc. Errour represents the same kind of dangerous craziness, wrapping Redcrosse as QAnon has wrapped a portion of the American electorate in her hideous folds. For those of you who have read C.S. Lewis’s Silver Chair, you’ll see that the scene is also the inspiration for the Lady of the Green Kirtle, who doubles as a serpent and wraps Prince Rilian in her coils:

Yet kindling rage, her selfe she gathered round,
And all attonce her beastly body raizd
With doubled forces high above the ground:
Tho wrapping up her wrethed sterne arownd,
Lept fierce upon his shield, and her huge traine
All suddenly about his body wound,
That hand or foot to stirre he strove in vaine:
God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endlesse traine.

Like Prince Rilian, Redcrosse gets one arm free and grabs her by the throat, at which point she disgorges like a commentator on Fox “News” or a rightwing website:

Therewith she spewd out of her filthy maw
A floud of poyson horrible and blacke,
Full of great lumpes of flesh and gobbets raw,
Which stunck so vildly, that it forst him slacke
His grasping hold, and from her turne him backe:
Her vomit full of books and papers was,
With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke,
And creeping sought way in the weedy gras:
Her filthy parbreake all the place defiled has.

Fortunately, these horrid creatures cannot hurt Redcrosse. He thinks, like many liberals today, that QAnon theories are so outlandish that one can simply brush them away, the way (to use the poem’s analogy) a shepherd  brushes away a cloud of gnats:

A cloud of combrous gnattes do him molest,
All striving to infixe their feeble stings,
That from their noyance he no where can rest,
But with his clownish [rustic] hands their tender wings
He brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings.

The monster Errour is another matter. Once Redcrosse manages to cut off her head, however, all her brood end up destroying themselves. This they do by lapping up her blood and then…Well, here’s Spenser’s account:

That detestable sight him much amazde,
To see th’ unkindly Impes, of heaven accurst,
Devoure their dam; on whom while so he gazd,
Having all satisfide their bloudy thurst,
Their bellies swolne he saw with fulnesse burst,
And bowels gushing forth: well worthy end
Of such as drunke her life, the which them nurst;
Now needeth him no lenger labour spend,
His foes have slaine themselves, with whom he should contend.

So Spenser tells us here that the truth will win out, an optimistic assurance I have heard from many journalists in the year since Donald Trump started promulgating “the Big Lie” of a stolen election. Although parts of the country only consume rightwing (Errour) media, we can’t brings ourselves to believe that they will get the last word. We think, instead, that if we cut off the monster’s head—say, if the House committee investigating January 6 delivers irrefutable evidence of a coup—the lies spawned by the Big Lie will die off of their own accord. We think the country has a chance to return to its founding principles.

Spenser himself, however, reveals that it may not be that easy. Redcrosse’s travails are not yet over, as the monster Orgoglio, symbolizing pride, awaits, as does Despair. Those fighting for Truth and Principle in our own time should take note. That being ackowledged, however, in the end Redcrosse does indeed return Una to her parents. And after killing a dragon, he marries her.

Our own dream was that Truth would triumph when we defeated Trump in 2020. Spenser informs us that we still have monsters to fight.