Edmund Spenser
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Edmund Spenser |
"Spenser" redirects here. For the detective novel character, see Spenser (fictional detective). For the Frontier Brain, see Spenser (Pokémon).Edmund Spenser (c.
1552–
13 January,
1599) was an
English poet and
Poet Laureate. Spenser is a controversial figure due to his zeal for the destruction of the
Irish culture yet is one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy.
Spenser was born about 1552, and educated in London at the
Merchant Taylors' School.
In the 1570's Spenser went to
Ireland, probably in the service of the newly appointed lord deputy, Arthur Grey. From 1579 to 1580, he served with the English forces during the
Second Desmond Rebellion. After the defeat of the rebels he was awarded lands in
Cork that had been confiscated in the
Munster Plantation during the
Elizabethan reconquest of Ireland. Among his acquaintances in the area was
Walter Raleigh, a fellow colonist.
Through his poetry Spenser hoped to secure a place at court, which he visited in Releigh's company to deliver his most famous work, the
Faerie Queene. However, he boldly antagonised the queen's principal secretary,
Lord Burghley, and all he received in recognition of his work was a pension in 1591. When it was proposed that he receive payment of 100 pounds for his epic poem, Burghley remarked, "What, all this for a song!"
In the early
1590s Spenser wrote a prose pamphlet titled,
A View of the Present State of Ireland. This piece remained in manuscript form until its publication in print in the mid-
seventeenth century. It is probable that it was kept out of print during the author's lifetime because of its inflammatory content. The pamphlet argued that Ireland would never be totally 'pacified' by the English until its indigenous language and customs had been destroyed, if necessary by violence. Spenser recommended
scorched earth tactics, such as he had seen used in the Desmond Rebellions, to create
famine.
The paradox proposed by Spenser was that only by methods that overrode the rule of law could the conditions be created for the true establishment of the rule of law. Although it has been highly regarded as a polemical piece of prose and valued as a historical source on
16th century Ireland, the
View is seen today as
genocidal in intent. Spenser did express some praise for the Gaelic poetic tradition, but also used much tendentious and bogus analysis to demonstrate that the Irish were descended from barbarian
Scythian stock.
Spenser was driven from his home by Irish rebels during the
Nine Years War in 1598. His castle at Kilcolman was burned, and it is thought one of his infant children died in the blaze. In the following year Spenser travelled to London, where he died in distressed circumstances, aged forty-six.
The first poem to earn Spenser notability was a collection of
eclogues called
The Shepheardes Calendar, written from the point of view of various
shepherds throughout the months of the year. The poem is an
allegory symbolizing the state of
humanity. The diversity of forms and meters, ranging from accentual-syllabic to purely accentual, and including such departures as the
sestina in
August, gave Spenser's contemporaries a clue to the range of his powers and won him praise in his day.
The Faerie Queene is his major contribution to English
poetry. The poem is a long, dense allegory, in the
epic form, of
Christian virtues, tied into
England's
mythology of
King Arthur. Spenser intended to complete twelve books of the poem, but managed only six before his death. The work remains the longest epic poem in the English language, and has inspired writers from
John Milton and
John Keats through
James Joyce and
Ezra Pound. He devised a verse form for
The Faerie Queene that has come to be known as the "
Spenserian stanza," and which has since been applied in poetry by the likes of
William Wordsworth,
John Keats,
Lord Byron, and
Alfred Lord Tennyson. The language of his poetry is purposely archaic. It reminds readers of earlier works such as
The Canterbury Tales of
Geoffrey Chaucer, whom Spenser greatly admired.
Spenser's
Epithalamion is the most admired of its type in the English language. It was written for his wedding to his young bride, Elizabeth Boyle. Spenser is often overshadowed by
William Shakespeare. For a modern take at Spenser, see
Camille Paglia's
Sexual Personae.
Poetic ExtractsFaerie Queene. Book v. Proem. St. 3.Let none then blame me, if in discipline:Of vertue and of civill uses lore,:I doe not forme them to the common line:Of present dayes, which are corrupted sore,:But to the antique use which was of yore,:When good was onely for it selfe desyred,:And all men sought their owne, and none no more;:When Justice was not for most meed out-hyred,:But simple Truth did rayne, and was of all admyred.
Faerie Queene. Book iii. Canto xi. St. 54.And as she lookt about, she did behold,:How over that same dore was likewise writ,:Be bold, be bold, and every where be bold,:That much she muz'd, yet could not construe it:By any ridling skill, or commune wit.:At last she spyde at that roomes upper end,:Another yron dore, on which was writ,:Be not too bold; whereto though she did bend:Her earnest mind, yet wist not what it might intend.
Blatant Beast was a phrase Spenser coined for the ignorant, slanderous, clamour of the
mob. However, the Blatant Beast from
The Faerie Queene is clearly shown to indicate
slander in general, and a large part of the final complete book (Book VI, although the Blatant Beast first appears towards the end of Book V) shows how thoroughly the Blatant Beast ravages the world, first spreading from the Court (not the villages or slums) and causing havoc everywhere it goes until it even penetrates into the
monasteries and causes great distress there. Only Calidore, the most courteous of knights, was able to tame, chain, and imprison the Blatant Beast, which eventually would break free and, as
The Faerie Queene concludes by saying, still ravages the world today since only two Arthurian knights ever even came close to doing what Calidore did and even
The Faerie Queene, the text asserts, shall become a target for the Blatant Beast.
Houses at two well-known English Public Schools are named after Spenser -
Merchant Taylors' School, which he attended, and
Dulwich College.
*
The Shepheardes Calender (1579)
*
The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596, 1609)
*
Complaints Containing sundrie small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie (1591)
**
The Ruines of Time**
The Teares of the Muses**
Virgil's Gnat**
Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale**
Ruines of Rome by
Bellay**
Muiopotmos, or the Fate of the Butterflie**
Visions of the worlds vanitie** The Visions of
Bellay** The Visions of
Petrarch*
Daphnaïda. An Elegy upon the death of the noble and vertuous Douglas Howard, Daughter and heire of Henry Lord Howard, Viscount Byndon, and wife of Arthure Gorges Esquier (1594)
*
Colin Clouts Come home againe (1595)
*
Astrophel A Pastoral Elegie upon the death of the most Noble and valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney (1595)
*
Amoretti (1595)
*
Epithalamion (1595)
*
Four Hymns (1596)
*
Prothalamion (1596)
*
A View of the Present State of Ireland (ca. 1598)
*
Free ebook of Edmund Spenser at
Project Gutenberg*
The Edmund Spenser Home Page* Project Gutenberg edition of
Biography of Edmund Spenser by John W. Hales
*
Poetry Archive: 154 poems of Edmund Spenser*
Cambridge site about Spenser
