This Great Fool's Stage: The Journey of Illusion and Deception in Say No to Plagiarism . Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Faerie Queene by Spenser and King Lear by Shakespeare. Perhaps more than any other period in British history, the English Renaissance embodied themes of deception and deception. Political conspiracies were rampant in the courts and loyalty was constantly questioned (“Sixteenth” 494). This tone is inevitably found in English Renaissance literature, such as Edward Spenser's The Faerie Queene and William Shakespeare's King Lear. However, while Spenser focuses on the ultimately triumphant journey of a completely good and holy-spirited individual through such a deceptive and therefore sinful world, Shakespeare focuses on individuals so trapped by illusions that 'they cannot separate and therefore die in such a state. Spenser's epic poem is primarily religious in nature. Book I follows Redcross Knight, identified as a knight who would eventually become St. George, patron saint of England. From the beginning, the reader is therefore aware that the protagonist is not only a sacred individual, but that he will ultimately succeed in his quest. In his quest, Redcross Knight encounters trials and incarnations of sins such as the Dragon of Error, Old Man Archimago (hypocrisy), Pride, Despair, and Lady Duessa (duplicity). These are allegorical figures which, according to Spenser, apply to all "Christian souls", but particularly to British Anglican citizens. Perhaps the most interesting figure among them is Duessa, whom Redcross Knight trusts implicitly throughout the poem. In many cases throughout The Faerie Queene, Redcross Knight is, on some level, aware of the possibility that he is being deceived. This happens near the beginning, when Archimago presents a false image of a lecherous lady Una and again when he is at the House of Pride. In both situations, a feeling of unease "makes him lose his head" and prevents Redcross Knight from being completely deceived (Spenser 1.1.492). However, Duessa overcomes these pitfalls by playing on Redcross Knight's understanding of love. It is originally introduced as Fidessa, which means fidelity or fidelity. By playing on this misunderstanding of love, Duessa manipulates Redcross Knight into “following her desires without satisfaction” (1.8.450). Redcross Knight never seems to question Duessa and continually takes her proclamations of love literally. In fact, it is not until Arthur and Una strip Duessa of her disguise and Redcross Knight considers her "[a] loathsome, wrinkled witch" that his manipulation ends (1.8.413). By having Duessa's desire/love If deception based on love is the most successful throughout the poem, Spenser seems to imply that deception based on love is the most damaging. This theme is also the backbone of Shakespeare's King Lear. However, while Spenser's tale is certainly allegorical and will certainly end in triumph, Shakespeare "explores the extremes of the mind's anguish... [and] never forgets that his characters have bodies [with ] needs, wants, and terrible vulnerabilities” (“Lear” 1141). The audience of Shakespeare's play never for a moment forgets that these characters are mortal and that, unlike Redcross Knight, they have the opportunity to fail on many levels. Unlike Redcross Knight, the deception involving love is not romantic love, but familial love. A. Inthe first scene of the play, an aging King Lear orders his daughters to say which of them loves him most, promising to give the largest share of his kingdom to the girl who "proves" his love in her speech . Goneril and Regan flatter their father beyond possible truth, insisting that they love him "no less than life" and "declare themselves enemies of all other joys" beyond that of the love of their father (1.1.57-73). Lear is completely taken in by his daughters' flattery and rewards them with large shares of his kingdom. However, because of this blindness to the difference between flattery and true love, Lear fails to recognize the much more real devotion that Cordelia expresses for him. In this way, it is not only Goneril and Regan who deceive Lear, but it is also Lear himself. Cordelia is the only girl who speaks without any sense of deception and truly expresses her unconditional love for her father, but Lear cannot see this because he has trapped himself in a false understanding of love. Unlike Spenser's naive but fundamentally good protagonist who finds himself trapped by the lies of external forces, Lear is trapped by his own illusory view of reality. Lear becomes his own downfall as his illusory vision begins to crumble and he realizes that his so-called "good" girls actually despise him. As he finds himself thrown into a raging storm, Lear alternately falls into a state of disjointed madness and finds moments of moral clarity in which he sees the world as it really is: full of "poor naked wretches" (3.4 .29) and horrible injustices. However, Shakespeare's play is not entirely devoid of characters like Redcross Knight, who are more manipulated than deceived. Edmund's misrepresentation of his father Gloucester parallels a more Spenserian approach in which professions of love are used solely to manipulate what might be seen as an essentially good but naive man. Much like Redcross Knight, Gloucester falls into despair and needs the support of his true beloved, in this case his son Edgar, to get through it again. However, Shakespeare complicates this situation with Gloucester's tragic blindness and the pitiful state of his life before his eventual death. Shakespeare thus highlights Lear's statement to the desperate Gloucester: "When we are all born, we cry that we have come / To that great stage of fools" (4.6.176-7). Unlike The Fairy Queen, where good triumphs over Satan and the deadly sins, Shakespeare's vision in King Lear is in no way a question of poetic justice. Humans deceive themselves and others using expectations of love and examples of "what we should say" (5.3.323), and even in moments of reality we are confronted with the injustice and cruelty. The image of the universe as inherently cruel and cruel. unjust is reiterated at the end of the play. When Lear enters the last scene carrying the dead Cordelia, he sobs and at first refuses to directly acknowledge anyone except his daughter's corpse. As he slowly explains Cordelia's death, he oscillates coherently, until he finally becomes obsessed with finding the last trace of life in her. A possible and even probable reading of the ambiguous sentence: “Look at her, look at her lips, / Look there, look there!” (5.3.310-11) is that in his final moments, Lear falls back into illusion and "dies under the influence of the illusion that he detects a breath on the lips of his daughter" ("Lear" 1141) . It's clear that The Faerie Queene and King Lear explore how easy it is to misinterpret reality and find yourself, 2006.