Each Book of Spenser’s The
Faerie Queene deals with the
adventures of a particular knight and the knight of each book whose adventures
the Books deal with personify some virtues enumerated by Aristotle in his Nicomachen
Ethics are Holiness, Temperance,
Chastity, Friendship, Justice, courtesy and Constancy. Accordingly the Red
Cross Knight who is the protagonist in the Book I whose adventure the Book
deals with personifies the virtue of Holiness which Spenser himself specifies
in his letter to his friend Sir Walter Raleigh, “the first of the knight of Red
Cross in whom I express Holiness.” However, the knight in the Book I differs in
one respect from the rest of the other knights. He is not given any personal name.
He is identified with Red Cross, the sign which he bears on his weapons, is a
symbol of the Crucifixion, also shows his loyalty and devotion to Lord Jesus Christ:
“But on his
breast a bloudie Crosse he bore,
The deare
remembrance of his dying Lord”
The
virtue which Red Cross incarnates, as has been stated above, is the virtue of
Holiness. As Holiness is a Christian virtue, the trials and sufferings which he
undertakes stand for man’s spiritual experience. Moreover, Holiness which Red
Cross incarnates is a given virtue because man is essentially holy made in the
image of God, but it is not a cloistered virtue. Therefore, the virtue needs to
be perfected in the real life situations. Red Cross, though a knight in his
outward appearance, yet he is an incarnation of the virtue of holiness which
needs to be perfected. In his very first appearance, he is the God’s elect who receives
sanctification through the stages of ‘Calling,’ ‘Repentance’ and ‘Justification.’
