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''''Orgoglio''' is a literary character in [[Edmund Spenser]]'s famous epic "[[The Faerie Queen]]". He first appears in the seventh canto as a horrible beast and attacks the main character, Redcrosse, who symbolizes the ultimate Christian knight, during a moment of weakness. He represents the sin of Pride—the word "Orgoglio" actually means pride in Italian—and allegorically Orgoglio represents the Redcross Knight's own failure to overcome the Pride of the Flesh. This explains the highly phallic nature of the beast, whom one critic has called an "ambulatory erection," or walking penis (Silberman, 1987, p. 213). He has a sinful relationship with the character Duessa, who symbolizes the Roman Catholic Church, sometimes referred to as "The Whore of Babylon." This relationship is meant to represent powerful leaders of the time that granted the church favors in order to gain privilege. He is eventually defeated by Prince Arthur—meant to symbolize King Arthur, and also Britain's glorious past—when Arthur's shield blinds him. ==References== {{Reflist}} * {{cite book|title=The Cambridge Companion to Spenser|author=Andrew Hadfield|publisher=Cambridge University Press|date=2001|isbn=0521645700|isbn13=9780521645706|pages=212}} * {{cite book|chapter=The Faerie Queen|author=Edmund Spenser|title=The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volume B.}} * {{cite web|url=http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/fqueen|title=The Faerie Queen}} [[Sparknotes]] ==Further reading== * {{cite book|title=Spenser's Supreme Fiction|author=Jon A. Quitslund|publisher=University of Toronto Press|date=2001|isbn=0802035051|isbn13=9780802035059}} * {{cite journal|author=S.K. Heninger Jr|title=The Orgoglio Episode in ''The Faerie Queene''|journal=English Literary History|volume=26|issue=2|pages=171–187|date=June 1959|url=http://jstor.org./pss/2872024|publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press}} * {{cite journal|title=Spenser's Erotic Drama: The Orgoglio Episode|author=J.W. Schroeder|date=1962|journal=English Literary History|volume=29|pages=140–159}} [[Category:Characters in poems]] {{lit-char-stub}}'