Polliticke Courtier

Spenser's The Faerie Queene as a Rhetoric of Justice

Michael F. N. Dixon

Michael Dixon applies rhetorical theory to The Faerie Queene, highlighting the importance of rhetoric and locating the inventio, or organizing principle, of Spenser's epic narrative in the conception of justice. He demonstrates how Spenser adapts classical rhetoric to the poetics of romance-epic and illustrates the usefulness of rhetorical analysis as a complement to allegorical studies and the New Critical and new historicist approaches that currently dichotomize Spenserian scholarship.