Gloriana

Gloriana is the titular character from Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene. It was published during the 1590's and was a contemporary of Shakespeare's plays. The character of Gloriana is meant to represent Queen Elizabeth I, the monarch at the time. The positive portrayal of Queen Elizabeth won Spenser a lifetime salary from the state. The whole poem is an allegory based on Arthurian legend, and the different characters presented are meant to represent different virtues.

Blue's reference to the character is meant to evoke the romantic nature of the poem. Whenever she and her father discuss the poem, she wishes she had a romantic beauty of the sort that is memorialized in art and literature.

Appearance in the Novel: 91
Source(s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faerie_Queene; and the full text at http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/fqintro.html