edmund spenser
DESCRIPTION
A biography of the author of The Faerie Queene.TRANSCRIPT
EDMUND SPENSERAUTHOR OF THE FAERIE QUEENE
Compiled by Mrs. Sara Dagen, Cornerstone Academy
Early years and education
Edmund Spenser was born around 1553 in London.
He was classically educated at the Merchant Taylors School.
He attended college at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge University.
He got his Bachelor of Arts in 1573 and his Masters of Arts in 1576.
Work life
Spenser first worked for the Bishop of Rochester, then served under the Earl of Leicester.
In 1580, he became secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland.
In 1581, he made Ireland his home, eventually acquiring Kilcolman, an estate with a castle, near the cities of Cork and Limerick.
Married life
Spenser married twice. He married Machabyas
Chylde in 1579; she died in 1594.
He then married Elizabeth Boyle.
Published works
He published his first personal work, The Shepheardes Calendar, a pastoral poem, in 1579.
He was actually a well-known poet before he wrote The Faerie Queene, but that work has overshadowed all his others.
The Shepheardes Calendar
Written in imitation of Vergil’s Ecologues, the Calender has an ecologue for each month of the year.
An ecologue is a short, pastoral poem written as a dialogue or soliloquy, including conversations among shepherds and rustic folk.
Most of the ecologues concern good or bad shepherds (pastors) of Christian congregations.
Spenser uses 13 different verse forms.
The Faerie Queene
He began the epic poem in 1580 and spent 10 years writing the first three books. It was published in 1591.
He planned to write 12 books, but he only managed 6 before his death.
The Faerie Queene
The twelve books were to represent the twelve personal moral virtues of Aristotle that Arthur represents.
In each book, a new hero represents a different virtue.
Arthur appears, disappears, and reappears throughout the poem, searching for his love, Gloriana (representing Queen Elizabeth).
Arthur represents “magnificence,” the sum total of all the virtues.
Epic details
Each of the six books contains 12 cantos, each with at least 40 stanzas.
Spenser invented the 9-line stanza: Lines 1-8 are in iambic pentameter (five
stresses). Line 9 is in iambic hexameter (six stresses;
alexandrine) Each line rhymes in ababbcbcc pattern.
This unique form came to be called Spenserian stanza.
Heroes book-by-book
Book I is devoted to the virtue of holiness; Redcrosse Knight is the hero.
Book II is temperance; Sir Guvon is the hero.
Book III is chastity; Britomart , the virgin, female warrior is hero.
Book IV is friendship; Cambel and Triamond are the heroes.
Book V is justice; Artegal is hero. Book VI is courtesy; Calidore is hero.
The Faerie Queene
Spenser created the setting of the land of Faerie and its queen, Gloriana (representing Queen Elizabeth).
Spenser dedicated The Faerie Queene to Queen Elizabeth and earned the title “poet laureate “(premier poet of England) as well as a stipend of 50 pounds annually.
The allegory’s story
Spenser used literature as a paradigm of the human experience.
The moral life is a quest or pilgrimage, made difficult by an eternal war with an enemy leading to a crisis, and then a moment of illumination.
In short, he told an ethical story filled with mystery, terror, love, victory and all the generous virtues.
But he did this by presenting an allegory with many levels of meaning.
The allegory’s story within a story
Most obvious is the story of the Redcross Knight and his Lady.
We related best to his story of a young Christian’s struggles to become more Christ-like.
Historically, it tells the story of the Reformation in England.
But it is also the story of British politics in the sixteenth century, the great conflict between Protestant England and Roman Catholic Spain.
And his vehicle for these messages is the story of great knights and noble deeds and even some romance.
Of interest in Spenser’s day
Scholar Graham Hough writes on the importance of The Faerie Queene : “In [Spenser's] own day a large part of the interest in The Faerie
Queene was political and dynastic: The celebration of the Tudors, culminating in Queen
Elizabeth, as the true continuators of Arthur's line, The allegorical references to the English Reformation in
Book I The transformation of the Duessa into Mary Queen of
Scots in Book V The many allusions in the same book to events in
France, Ireland and the Low Countries Great figures such as Raleigh, Leicaster, Sidney, and
Lord Grey appear under a light disguise among Spenser's immense array of characters.”
Now, define epic for me?
Spenser followed the poetic models for epic poems.
Stanzas are eight lines of perfect iambic pentameter with an “alexandrine” (slightly longer line) closing.
It includes classical references and episodes (a trip to the underworld, a giant, etc.)
Medieval rhetoric?
Spenser followed the rules of medieval rhetoric: Amplificatio (amplifying his poem) using
Expolitio (conveying the same thought in different ways)
Circumlocutio (referring to nouns without their proper names)
Ornatus (switching the order of words) Diversio (digressing while right in the middle of
an exciting part)
His death
In 1598, rebels in Ireland rose up in an attempt to rest control from the English.
Though the rebellion failed, Spenser’s estate was captured and burned, and he was forced to seek shelter in Cork.
Likely in despair, he then carried a bundle of letters about the desperate state of affairs to the queen’s advisors in London, where he died shortly thereafter.
His grave
Spenser is buried in Westminster Abby, and inscribed on his tomb are the words, “The Prince of Poets.”
He is buried close to the grave of Geoffrey Chaucer.
His grave
His funeral was attended by many of his contemporaries, including Shakespeare.
It is believed that they threw their elegies along with the pens which wrote them, into the grave.
His legacy
1579 The Shepheards Calendar 1590, 1596 The Faerie Queene 1591 Complaints 1595 Amoretti and Epithalamion 1595 Colin Clout's Come Home Again 1596 Four Hymns 1596 Prothalamion 1598 A View of the Present State of
Ireland
His legacy continues
Spenser was considered in his day to be the greatest of English poets, his Faerie Queene glorifying England as Virgil’s Aeneid glorified Rome.
Spenser had a strong influence upon his immediate successors.
His poetic style and his nine-line stanza form were admired and imitated by such poets as Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley in the Romantic period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
He is considered significant to the English literary Renaissance and a master who embodied in poetic myth a view of the virtuous life of a Christian.
His legacy continues
Students all over the world even today are experiencing the joy of reading The Faerie Queene.
They are seeing the parallels in their own Christian walks as well as the historical and political significance of the work.
And they are counting it all joy—right?