The Faerie Queene: Satire 6 key examples

At first, an elderly man (later identified as Archimago, one of the poem’s chief villains) opens his doors to the exhausted travelers, and he appears to be a kindly figure. However, Spenser’s subtle allusions to Catholicism signal to his Protestant readers that there is more than meets the eye in this scene. There is no “entertainement”  in the house, so instead the guests chat with their elderly host through the evening. The old man has a “tongue as smooth as glas,” suggesting that he is charming but also perhaps a wily or manipulative figure.

Through the night, he regales them with stories of “Saintes and Popes.” For many Protestants of Spenser’s day, such tales were considered to be dangerous deceptions used by Catholics to trick the naive and superstitious. So too does the elderly man repeat “Aue-Mary” ("Ave Maria" or “Hail Mary”), a prayer to Mary, the mother of Christ, whose prominent role in the Catholic Church was critiqued by many Protestant reformers. Through these various allusions, Spenser satirizes Catholicism and portrays this seemingly comfortable house as yet another spiritual trap that Redcross must overcome.

Though Mammon identifies himself as a powerful god, Spenser undermines his arrogance. He might indeed be the “greatest god below the skye,” but this boast also serves as a significant caveat: gods are generally imagined as being up in the heavens, not hiding under the ground. Mammon additionally claims that he generously distributes his “plenty” to “all,” and that “all this worldes good” stems from him, but he quickly contradicts himself, acknowledging that “men swinck and sweat incessantly” for his money and goods.

In the final lines of the stanza he contradicts himself yet again, acknowledging that all of his money flows down “in the hollow earth” forever, rather than being redistributed among the people for their benefit. In this satirical portrayal of Mammon, Spenser lampoons the wealthy who claim to serve the public while in fact hoarding their riches. 

Malbecco has married the much younger Hellenore, but, as the narrator notes in a simile, he is old and “withered like hay,” and therefore an unfit husband for such a young woman. He feels guilty due to his inability to sexually pleasure his wife and as a result of his guilt he constantly suspects her of adultery, keeping a “continuall spy” or constant eye on her. However, the narrator mockingly suggests that even these paranoid attempts to keep her away from other men are in vain, as he has a “blincked eye” that cannot see well. The narrator is harsh in condemnation of Malbecco, who doesn’t allow anyone to see his wife and keeps her locked up in a “close bowre” away from “all men’s sight.” Malbecco, then, is a conventional satirical figure representing the vanity of older men who marry young wives.

Here, Spenser lampoons the language of epic poetry, and more specifically of The Illiad, Homer’s epic portrayal of the Trojan War. Spenser uses a series of metaphors drawn from war in order to portray the affair of Hellenore and Paridell, whose names mimic those of Helen and Paris, chief players in the Siege of Troy. Their names immediately signal to the reader that these characters will conduct an affair regardless of the cost, in much the same way that Paris’s abduction of Helen directly led to the destruction of Troy by the Greek army. 

Spenser’s satire cuts two ways. First, the gulf between the grand rhetoric he uses here and the petty affair conducted by Hellenore and Paridell highlights their status as “minor” figures in comparison to their famed namesakes. However, Spenser’s parody also underscores the fact that the mythological Helen and Paris conducted a tawdry affair that ruined the lives of many. This is Spenser’s most notable instance of “mock epic” in The Faerie Queene.

Spenser hyperbolically claims that all values have completely reversed in his own era, the late 16th century. That which “all men” once called “vertue” is now deemed “vice,” and that “which vice was hight” is instead “now hight virtue.” He continues his pessimistic lament, arguing that “Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right,” and “all things in time are chaunged quight.” Spenser further underscores his point by suggesting that chaos in the social sphere has even led to disarray in the natural world: “the heauenes reuolution / Is wandred farre," he suggests, and everything in the world is moving “contrarie” to its natural order, leading towards the “dissolution” of the Earth itself.

Here, Spenser harshly condemns the moral disorder which he believes to be not only prevalent but almost universal in his society. His language here marks a sharp break from his previous praise of the reign of Elizabeth I and the chivalric values fostered in her court, though he carefully avoids criticizing the Queen directly. 

Here, Spenser presents the Giant’s argument as a nonsensical parody of populist and egalitarian political movements of his day that called for the redistribution of land and wealth. Revolts led by peasants and poor farmers were a regular feature of 16th century England, and they were, as a general rule, harshly suppressed by the crown and the nobility. The Giant calls for mountains to be cast down to “make them leuell with the lowly plaine” in order to “equalize” the Earth. Further, he proposes to “suppresse” political tyrants, as well as “Lordings” or gentlemen, and to redistribute “all the wealth of rich men.” Here, Spenser throws his support behind the English aristocracy which held the majority of power and wealth in England. He suggests that those who would confiscate personal wealth are as absurd as those who would level mountains in order to bring about an artificial equality. For Spenser, the hierarchy of class is as natural as mountains.