“I labour to pourtraict in Arthur, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private moral virtues.”

Presenting the ideal of virtue through a fictional exemplary figure · Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, prefatory to The Faerie Queene

• Art
• Truth

“To some I know this method will seem displeasing, which had rather have good discipline delivered plainly in way of precepts, or sermoned at large.”

Defending allegory as a persuasive form of moral instruction · Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, prefatory to The Faerie Queene

• Art
• Truth

“By the person of Prince Arthur I understand Magnificence in general, which virtue, I take to be the perfection of all the rest.”

Describing magnificence as the unifying ideal of the virtues · Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, prefatory to The Faerie Queene

• Beauty
• Truth