The Polliticke Courtier: Spenser's «The Faerie Queene» as a Rhetoric of Justice

Elisabeth Anne MacDonald-Murray is an assistant professor of English at
the University of Western Ontario.

In his introduction to this timely work of literary criticism, Michael
Dixon observes that scholars such as Brian Vickers have been arguing for
some time the importance of a knowledge of rhetoric in achieving a
“fully informed reading of Renaissance texts.” Taking his cue from
the work of A.C. Hamilton et al., who attempted to provide some
representation of rhetorical topics in The Spenser Encyclopedia, Dixon
draws upon the traditions and techniques of both literature and rhetoric
in this fresh look at Spenser’s narrative and rhetorical strategies in
The Faerie Queene. Although he acknowledges the problems inherent in
creating a text that seeks to unite these two seemingly disparate
disciplines—he quotes James Murphy’s assertion that “few
Spenserians know rhetoric well, while no rhetoricians know Spenser at
all”—he nonetheless shows that an understanding of the classical art
of rhetoric is particularly relevant to the study of a poet who adopted
not only rhetoric’s stylistic tropes and ornamentations but also its
persuasive form of argument and organization.

Dixon’s argument that Spenser develops his inventio of justice
through the adoption of the rhetorical model of courtship and the
narrative sequence of the knightly quest is presented through an
examination of Books I to IV, in which he balances literary criticism
with rhetorical analysis. In a work that is directed toward both
literary scholars and rhetorical historians, he successfully puts
traditional allegorical interpretations of The Faerie Queene within an
appropriate context and provides the many diverse avenues of current
Spenser studies with “a measure of common provenance and at least
partial accommodation.”