*The Faerie Queene* Now: remaking religious poetry for today's world

This project investigates religion and society by rescuing a neglected poem, one of the great epics of English literature, Edmund Spenser's *The Faerie Queene*. A poem of militant Protestantism contemporary with the original establishment of the national church, *The Faerie Queene* (FQ) is remote from mainstream secular society, and from its relatively quiescent and marginalised official church. Paradoxically, in present-day England Spenser's poem has most in common with the insurgent religious intensity of other, 'minority' faiths. And yet, poetry itself has, since Spenser, lost much of its power to speak to and intervene in issues of fundamental social and religious concern.

*The Faerie Queene Now* (TFQN) responds by remaking religious poetry for today's world. It speaks to where we have come from and where we are going by exploring Spenser's foundational poem in various present-day religious, educational and cultural contexts. But it also aims to recreate and refunction Spenser's epic as a positive contribution to contemporary life. In doing this it hopes to bring some of the energy of Spenser's art and moment into official English religion, which it also hopes to open further to energetic and diverse elements not allowed for or even foreseen by the original national church. At the same time, it aims to bring official religion into creative dialogue with other groups in English society that are entirely beyond incorporation into any established church. In short, TFQN seeks via poetry and the imagination the greatest possible representation of religious and secular interests in relation to our shared inheritance and to those issues of religion and society which, one way or another, matter to us all.

The project splits into two main component projects.

One is the Liturgy Project, which seeks to create new liturgical texts and solidarity-builiding rituals for contemporary society inspired by the quest for holiness in Book 1 of Spenser's epic. Here the PI, Ewan Fernie, will work in conjunction with major poet and Co-I Jo Shapcott, and the theologian Andrew Shanks, who has made a case for 'shaken poetry' as a source of religious renovation. This team will prepare two extraordinary, inclusive services for the two very different environments of Manchester Cathedral and St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, working in each case with an impressive group of consultants including scholars, artists and theologians. The culminating event in Windsor will feature Andrew Motion and form part of the Windsor Spring Festival. The St George's Day event in Manchester will be preceded by a procession, through the city streets, with Catalan-style 'gegants', giant puppet figures, representing Spenserian figures. The liturgical texts will be published with a critical introduction.

This will be complemented by the Fable and Drama Project, in which writer Simon Palfrey and director Elisabeth Dutton will evolve new stories and a play through intense collaboration with heterogeneous educational communities: two ethnically diverse comprehensive secondary schools, both from socially deprived wards; and the radically different students of Oxford University. The aim here will be to recover and communicate the trials and possibilities of virtue - religious and secular - in contemporary life. The culminating events will be the publication of a book of the project, illustrated by student collaborators, and a closed performance at Shakespeare's Globe.

The projects will come together in two events of reflection, dialogue and synthesis: a public arts event run by the Poet in the City charity at major London venue King's Place and a two-day cross-sector conference at Cumberland Lodge.

The overall project will come to fruition in a major collection of essays revealing what Spenser has to give to the arts, society and religion, entitled *The Faerie Queene Now!*, and modelled on fernie and palfrey's Shakespeare Now! Series.

TFQN is from the first and throughout concerned to link up with users and beneficiaries of research outside the academic community. There is no need for an additional 'action plan' to assure the impacts listed here as they are already thoroughly integrated in the project.

WHO WILL BENEFIT?

The specific beneficiaries will be the project partners and the wider communities they belong to:

in the ecclesiastical sector-primarily, Manchester Cathedral and St George's Chapel, but also other churches and the Church of England more generally

in the schools sector-primarily, the George Mitchell and Bishop David Brown schools but also Eton College and the sector in general

in the cultural sector-primarily, the Windsor Festival, Cumberland Lodge, the Poet in the City charity, Shakespeare's Globe

As well as, more broadly,

the local communities of London E10, Woking, the Windsor area and the Manchester Metropolitan area.

HOW WILL THEY BENEFIT?

THE ECCLESIASTICAL SECTOR

Manchester Cathedral and St Georges will benefit by: developing new liturgical resources which negotiate with the wider community, as well as from being brought into conjunction with an impressive group of artists, scholars and religious authorities and from bringing in an extraordinary congregation for the culminating events; Manchester will benefit by establishing a new liturgical and civic celebration of St George's day, and from strengthening its bid to be considered The Poetry Cathedral in England.

It is anticipated that other churches will benefit from the published liturgies.

Moreover, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Liturgical Commission are aware of the project and there will be a publication in *Church Times* as well as considerable other press.

THE SCHOOLS SECTOR

George Mitchell and Bishop David Brown schools will benefit by: trialling new engagements with English literature which address and involve the distinctive cultural and religious experience of their pupils and by involvement in a creative and exciting research project and new contacts with various 'high art' institutions.

Eton College will benefit from its Muslim Tutor 's involvement in the liturgy project and by participation in the event in St George's Chapel.

The schools sector more generally will benefit from reports in the *English Association Newsletter* and *The English Subject Centre Newsletter* and from teachers' participation in the Cumberland Lodge conference, as well as from the reusable resource of Palfrey's book of the schools project, *Virtue!*.

THE CULTURAL SECTOR

The Windsor Festival will benefit from the project by running the culminating event of The Faerie Queene Liturgy Project as its central event for the 2011 Spring Festival.

Cumberland Lodge will benefit by acquiring a conference that fits in with its mandate to bridge the academic and wider cultural spheres and to address and discuss matters of contemporary social significance.

The Poet in the City charity will benefit from the project by acquiring a major event to run in central London which fits in with its general mission to link poetry with social health and wellbeing.

Shakespeare's Globe will benefit from the project by collaborating on a set of workshops which resonate with objectives of improving knowledge of Shakespeare's Elizabethan contexts and involving school children who would not normally interact with and benefit from 'high art' institutions.

LOCAL COMMUNITIES

The Windsor area will benefit from the project inasmuch as it brings together a group of local institutions in a high-profile project which will enhance social, cultural and religious life in the locality.

The Manchester Metropolitan area will benefit from a major St George's Day event.

Representatives from the very different localities involved - East London, Woking, Windsor,