Play of Double Senses: Spenser's Faerie Queene

My hope has been to provide students (and teachers) of Spenser's epic with ways of approaching the poem. The first part of the book is concerned with contexts--the life of Spenser, some forms the epic took before (and after) his own, the pervasiveness of certain literary figures (like Chaucer) and figures from literature (like Arthur) during his time. In discussing these topics, I have also tried to place Spenser's text itself. The chapter on overall structure, where others have preceded me, is intended to fasten on the whole poem. The next, on Pageantry, is my own foray into the subject and strategems of Allegory, though I have chosen to speak of Allegory in terms the poem (and not simply the ) constantly employs. This chapter and the last three then focus on the 'play of double senses' (a text derived from Book III, canto iv, stanza 28) as I see it working in specific ways in the epic, thus suggesting how Spenser participates in the epic tradition that I sketched in Chapter II. --from the Preface