Spenser’s Paul: Slowth, Urban Christianity, and Deadly Sin in The Faerie Queene

Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene organizes the deadly sins at the House of Pride to illustrate the strife created by sin, much like the effect Paul addresses in his lists of sins. Scholars have long investigated the organization of Spenser’s sins by comparison with orders in patristic, medieval, and early modern analogues. Yet Spenser does not follow any precedent and breaks from it by starting with sloth, which usually appears near the end. His order instead emphasizes conflict among sins, putting the traditionally most inactive sins at the front, which block active ones at the back. The jumble of Spenser’s tableau parallels the crowding of early modern London, where Spenser was born and died, and of the cities where Paul focused his missionary zeal. Developing a Pauline insight about urban Christianity, Spenser in his list of sins focuses on social problems of dissension, frustration, and effort turned against itself.