Elfin Knight, The: Book 2 of Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’

This book is fantasy fiction. We believe it contains valuable lessons and themes but it may not be as explicitly Christian as the rest of our range. We recommend parents familiarise themselves with the fantasy books their children read and discuss the stories and themes with them.

Ages 12+

Be enchanted. Feed your hunger for fantasy. Exercise your faith. Test your judgment. Form your imagination. Enter Faerie Land.

” Now that I have found the Canon Press series, I will not use any other edition of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene . Engaging (and often hilarious) footnotes, helpful definitions of archaic language, enlightening end-of-chapter questions, a delightful re-telling in the Appendix, and a classy printing all contribute to the readability and accessibility of this edition. Toby J. Sumpter provides more than just an excellent annotation and edition of an important but often inaccessible text. He serves as a merry travel guide for our middle and high schoolers who would rather be found catching snakes than reading books.” ~ Rosaria Butterfield, author of The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

“Edmund Spenser (1559-99) has earned the title ‘the poet’s poet’ because of the high poetry of his epic and because so many great poets, including Milton, Dryden, Tennyson, and Keats, cut their poetic teeth on The Faerie Queene. The hero of Book II is Sir Guyon, the knight of Temperance. But do not let that throw you. This is not a poem about teetotalism. As C. S. Lewis puts it, The Faerie Queene ‘demands of us a child’s love of marvels and dread of bogies, a boy’s thirst for adventures, a young man’s passions for physical beauty.’ Following in the wake of Roy Maynard’s Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves , Toby Sumpter’s notes are insightful and humorous-making this great Christian epic poem accessible for modern readers. The Elfin Knight makes an excellent choice as a homeschool or classroom text.” -Jayson Grieser, Fellow of Humanities, New Saint Andrews College

“The poem is a great palace, but the door into it is so low that you must stoop to go in. No prig can be a Spenserian. It is of course much more than a fairy tale, but unless we enjoy it as a fairy tale first of all, we shall not really care for it.” -C.S. Lewis

284 pages.

View excerpt here.