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3. Edmund Spenser(1552-1599)
Life
 Edmund Spenser was born in or near 1552, from a family of small means, and
he attended the Merchant Taylor’s School under Richard Mulcaster. He went to
Cambridge, about 1569-76, as a sizar (who paid less). He took his Bachelor’s
degree in 1573 and his Master’s in 1576. By 1578 he was serving as secretary
to Bishop John Young, in Kent, the landscape of which is frequently
mentioned in The Shepheardes Calender. Entering into employment by
the Earl of Leicester the following year, Spenser became a friend with
Philip Sidney,
Edward Dyer, and
Fulke Greville. They formed a literary
group called the “Areopagus” by Spenser, and their talents were enlisted in
supporting the cause of the Leicester faction in matters of religion and
politics.
The Shepheardes Calender appeared at the end of the year, in time to
serve as propaganda for the Leicester position on the Queen’s proposed
marriage with the Duc d’Alencon. The following year he began work on The
Faerie Queene, and entered the employ of Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Deputy of
Ireland.
In 1581 Spenser worked as Clerk in Chancery for Faculties, and soon the
friendship with
Sir Walter Ralegh. The year 1589 saw Spenser’s return to
London, partly to oversee the publication of the first three books of The
Faerie Queene.
After two years Spenser returned to Ireland, where he courted and married
Elizabeth Boyle, and continued to produce a number of works, including The
Amoretti (a sonnet sequence) and Epithalamion, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe,
Fowre Hymnes, and Prothalamion. An edition of The Faerie Queene, Books I-VI,
appeared in 1596. A general uprising of the Irish forced Spenser to go back
to London in 1598, where he brought correspondence from Sir Thomas Norris to
the
Privy Council. A few weeks later, January 13th, 1599, he died in
Westminster and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
The Faerie Queene
“The generall end... of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble
person in vertuous and gentle discipline”. So writes Edmund Spenser in a
letter he introduces his masterpiece--The Faerie Queene. In this aspect, his
work is characteristic of its age, for it is meant to show people how to
live properly. But unlike other “Courtesy Books” popular at the time, such
as Castiglione's Courtier, The Faerie Queene is written in verse, and
the Elizabethans believed verse should teach and please people.
The First Booke of The Faerie Queene
The Legende of the Knight of the Red Crosse or Of Holinesse
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge min Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whos prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacted Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithfull loves shall moralize my song.
The last line of the stanza summarizes the main subjects of the epic:
fighting and love. As for the scene of fighting, that between the giant and
young Arthur is vividly and attractively presented:
Therewith the Gyant buckled him to fight,
Inflam'd with scornefull wrath and high disdaine,
And lifting vp his dreadfull club on hight,
All arm'd with ragged snubbes and knottie graine,
Him thought at first encounter to haue slaine,
But wise and warie was that noble Pere,
And lightly leaping from so monstrous maine,
Did faire auoide the violence him nere;
It booted nought, to thinke, such thunderbolts to beare.
……..
His boystrous club, so buried in the ground,
He could not rearen vp againe so light,
But that the knight him at auantage found,
And whiles he stroue his combred clubbe to quight
Out of the earth, with blade all burning bright
He smote off his left arme, which like a blocke
Did fall to ground, depriu'd of natiue might;
Large streames of bloud out of the truncked stocke
Forth gushed, like fresh water streame from riuen rocke.
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