The Pillars of Eternity: Time and Providence in the Faerie Queene

The purpose of this new study is to examine the themes of time and providence as they affect the romance narrative of The Faerie Queene. From the point of view of the individual, time is destructive or benign as it affects his own interests or those of his immediate party. but as the outlook widens to that of the race the concept of perpetuity puts such judgments in a new perspective. The relationship between time and providence is one of the central issues in Western philosophy, and Spenser’s exploration of the creative and destructive aspects of time from the point of view of -both the individual and the race is seen against the background of ideas available to him. But The Faerie Queene is not a discursive philosophical or theological treatise, and the intention here is not to impose a single intellectual interpretation on the intricacies of the storyline of the poem, but to examine and appreciate the various ways in which Spenser responded aesthetically to his central theme.