When the Renaissance crept into the world’s social senses people were moved. However, when the Renaissance began to affect the literature of the sixteenth century, the world was changed forever. The Renaissance, meaning a “re-birth,” was a time of many changes. These changes wrought pandemonium among the civilized people of earth. There was a recovery and discovery of medieval texts in which scholars were deeply impressed by. Those in love with the arts and literature now had more choices to view and read. There was an outpour of those individuals attempting to create paintings that exemplified the feelings that saturated the minds of the brilliant scholars. Most importantly, however, was the huge change of the role of the church in everything. Martin Luther nailed up his “95 Thesis” and thus began the Reformation of the Catholic Church. With this came a rushing tide of secularization in Europe. This, of course, blew over into literature and the arts. The Faerie Queen is one epic that included the ideals and morals that the excommunicated Christians found rather intriguing and good to follow after. One can easily compare the Red Cross Knight to a Christ figure. Other characters can be paralleled to Biblical men and women as well. It was the era of discovery. People chose to discover themselves. Identities were formed and the individual man began to take more notice of himself than any other. This was a more difficult task for the Protestants because of their commitments. However, they were surrounded by this culture, lived in it, and were comfortable in the right to think about one’s self more often. In The Faerie Queen we see the “hero” attempt to fight off the evil thing that is plaguing a friend who has asked for his help. Here is the Christian once again the helper and sustainer of life. The Reformation had caused a sort of brave attitude to cover Europe.Another g...
