Furor
A madman and personification of uncontrollable rage in Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene."
Introduction#
Furor is a violent madman in Book II of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. He is the son of Occasion, who encourages him to attack passing knights and travellers. Furor is not merely a character overcome by madness: his name and behaviour make him an embodiment of uncontrolled fury and violent passion.
Encounter with Guyon#
Sir Guyon, the Knight of Temperance, encounters Furor while the mandman is savagely beating the unfortunate squire Phedon.
Guyon intervenes and subdues Furor, while also binding and gagging Occasion so that she can no longer incite her son to violence. Furor is then captured and restrained.
Furor and Pyrochles#
Guyon later permits the fiery knight Pyrochles to release Furor so that Pyrochles may fight him. The result is disastrous for Pyrochles: Furor overwhelms him and beats him unconscious.
The episode demonstrates that uncontrolled fury is dangerous even to those who themselves are ruled by violent passion.
Allegorical Significance#
Furor represents fury, madness, and uncontrolled anger. His relationship with Occasion is particularly significant: opportunity or circumstance provokes the violent passion that follows. His defeat by Guyon therefore forms part of Spenser’s larger allegory of Temperance, in which reason and self-control must overcome the destructive passions.
In the Arthurian Tradition#
Furor is unique to Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. Although he is not an Arthurian character from the medieval romances, his encounters with Guyon and Pyrochles place him within Spenser’s reimagining of the Arthurian world as a moral lancscape in which knights confronts personifications of virtue and vice.
Sources#
The Faerie Queene | Edmund Spenser, 1570-1599
