Errour’s Repercussions: Dragons, Race, and Animality in The Faerie Queene

This chapter argues that Spenser’s conceptualisation of the human is formed through both animality and race. It focuses on Redcrosse’s major opponents in Book I of The Faerie Queene (1590), the dragonlike creature Errour, and the actual dragon he must slay to assume his predestined identity as St George. The first section explores how animality and race have been discussed together in early modern studies so far, before locating this discussion in Critical Race Theory and Animal Studies. The chapter next outlines key early modern discursive contexts for dragons: the Bible; popular culture; mythology; and natural history. It then close reads Spenser’s characterisation of Errour via animality and race, before tracing how her characterisation echoes in that of the dragon. The chapter encourages early modern scholarship to examine how the period’s construction of the human is formed not by animality and race operating independently, but in tandem.