Life :
Of Spenser early life and parentage we know little, except that he was born in East Smithfield near the tower of London and was poor. his education began at the merchant tailor school in London and was continued in Cambridge, where he earned a scant living here in the glorious world that only poor scholar know how to create for himself he read the classic made acquaintance with the great Italian poet and wrote numberless little poems of his own. though Chaucer was his beloved master his ambition was not to rival the Canterbury tales, but rather to express the dream of English chivalary, much as ariosto had done for italy in Orlando furioso.
Spenser's work
The Farey queen is the great work upon which the poet's fame chiefly rests .the original plan of the poem included twenty four books each of which was to recount the adventure and triumph of a knight who represented a moral virtue. Spencer purpose as indicated in a letter to Raleigh which introduce the poem is as follow:
To pourtraic in arthure before he was a king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve privet morall vertues,as Aristotle hath devised; which is the purpose of these first twelve books: which if I finde to be well accepted I may be perhaps encourage to frame the other part of polliticke vertues in his person. after that he came to King.
Each of the virtues appears as a knight. fighting his opposing vice. and the poem tells the story of the conflicts. it is therefore purely allegorical. not only in its personified virtues but also In it's representation of life as struggle between good and evil.in its strong moral element the poem differs radically from Orlando furioso,upone which it was modeled. Spencer completed only six book, celebrating Holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy.we have also a fragments of the seventh, treating of constancy, but the rest of this book was not written or else was lost in the way the interest lags and the allegory growas
Incomprehensible it is perhaps as well for spenser's reputation that the other eighteen books reminding a dream.
also in its representation of life as a struggle between good and evil. In its strong moral
element the poem differs radically from Orlando Furioso, upon which it was modeled. Spenser
completed only six books, celebrating Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and
Courtesy. We also have a fragment of the seventh, treating of Constancy, but the fly rest of this
book was not written, or else was lost in the fire at Kilcolman. The first three books are by far the
best; and judging by the way the interest lags and the allegory grows incomprehensible, it is
perhaps as well for Spenser's reputation that the other eighteen books remained a dream.
Argument of fairy queen
From the introductory letter we learn that the hero visits the queen's court in Fairy Land, while
she is holding a twelve-days festival. On each day some distressed person appears
unexpectedly, tells a woful story of dragons, of enchantresses, or of distressed beauty or Virtue,
and asks for a champion to right the wrong and to let the oppressed go free Sometimes a knight
volunteers or begs for the dangerous mission; again the duty is assigned by the queen; and the
journeys and adventures of these knights are the subjects of the several books. The first
recounts the adventures of the Redcross Knight, representing Holiness, and the lady Una,
representing Religion. Their contests are symbolical of the world-wide struggle between virtue
and faith on the one hand, and sin and heresy on the other. The second book tells the story of
Sir Guyon, or Temperance; the third, of Britomartis, representing Chastity; the fourth, fifth, and
sixth, of Cambel and Triamond (Friendship), Artegall (Justice), and Sir Calidore (Courtesy).
Spenser's plan was a very elastic one and he filled up the measure of his narrative with
everything that caught his fancy,--historical events and personages under allegorical masks,
beautiful ladies, chivalrous knights, giants, monsters, dragons, sirens. enchanters, and
adventures enough to stock a library of fiction. If you read Homer or Virgil, you know his subject
in the first strong line; if you read Cædmon's Paraphrase or Milton's epic, the introduction gives
you the theme; but Spenser's great poem--with the exception of a single line in the prologue,
"Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song"--gives hardly a hint of what is coming.
As to the meaning of the allegorical figures, one is generally in doubt. In the first three books the
shadowy Faery Queen sometimes represents the glory of God and sometimes Elizabeth, who
was naturally flattered by the parallel. Britomartis is also Elizabeth. The Redcross Knight is
Sidney, the model Englishman. Arthur, who always appears to rescue the oppressed, is
Leicester, which is another outrageous flattery. Una is sometimes religion and sometimes the
Protestant Church; while Duessa represents Mary Queen of Scots, or general Catholicism. In
the last three books Elizabeth appears again as Mercilla; Henry IV of France as Bourbon; the
war in the Netherlands as the story of Lady Belge; Raleigh as Timias, the earls of
Northumberland and Westmorland (lovers of Mary or Duessa) as Blandamour and Paridell; and
so on through the wide range of contemporary characters and events, till the allegory becomes
as difficult to follow as the second part of Goethe's Faust.
Poetical Form. For the Faery Queen Spenser invented a new verse form, which has been
called since his day the Spenserian stanza. Because of its rare beauty it has been much used
by nearly all our poets in their best work. The new stanza was an improved form of Ariosto's
ottava rima (i.e. eight-line stanza) and bears a close resemblance to one of Chaucer's most
musical verse forms in the "Monk's Tale." Spenser's stanza is in nine lines, eight of five feet
each and the last of six feet, rimming abababcc. In the very first book the style and melody of
the verse are noteworthy.
Minor Poems
Next to his masterpiece, the Shepherd's Calendar (1579) is the best known of Spenser's poems:
though, as his first work, it is below many others in melody. It consists of twelve pastoral poems,
or eclogues, one for each month of the year. The themes are generally rural life, nature, love in
the fields, and the speakers are shepherds and shepherdesses. To increase the rustic effect
Spenser uses strange forms of speech and obsolete words, to such an extent that Jonson
complained his works are not English or any other language. Some are 165 melancholy poems
on his lost Rosalind; some are satires on the clergy; one, "The Briar and the Oak." is an
allegory; one flatters Elizabeth, and others are pure fables touched with the Puritan spirit. They
are written in various styles and meters, and show plainly that Spenser was practicing and
preparing himself for greater work.
Other noteworthy poems are "Mother Hubbard's Tale," a satire on society; "Astrophel," an elegy
on the death of Sidney; Ambretti, or sonnets, to his Elizabeth; the marriage hymn.
"Epithalamion," and four "Hymns," on Love, Beauty, Heavenly Love, and Heavenly Beauty.
There are numerous other poems and collections of poems, but these show the scope of his
work and are best worth reading.
Importance of the Shepherd's Calendar
The publication of this work, in 1579, by an unknown writer who signed himself modestly
"Immerito," marks an important epoch in our literature. We shall appreciate this better if we
remember the long years during which England had been without a great poet. Chaucer and
Spenser are often studied together as poets of the Renaissance period, and the idea prevails
that they were almost contemporary. In fact, nearly two centuries passed after Chaucer's
death-years of enormous political and intellectual development--and not only did Chaucer have
no successor but our language had changed so rapidly that Englishmen had lost the ability to
read his lines correctly.
This first published work of Spenser is noteworthy in at least four respects: first, it marks the
appearance of the first national poet in two centuries; second, it shows again the variety and
melody of English verse, which had been largely a tradition since Chaucer; third, it was our first
pastoral, the beginning of a long series of English pastoral compositions modeled on Spenser,
and as such exerted a strong influence on subsequent literature; and fourth, it marks the real
beginning of the outburst of great Elizabethan poetry.
Characteristics of Spenser's Poetry
The five main qualities of Spenser's poetry are (1) a perfect melody; (2) a rare sense of beauty;
(3) a splendid imagination, which could gather into one poem heroes, knights, ladies, dwarfs,
demons and dragons, classic mythology, stories of chivalry, and the thronging ideals of the
Renaissance.--all passing in gorgeous procession across an ever-changing and ever beautiful
landscape; (4) a lofty moral purity and seriousness; (5) a delicate idealism, which could make all
nature and every common thing beautiful. In contrast with these excellent qualities the reader
will probably note the strange appearance of his lines due to his fondness musica for obsolete
words, like eyne (eyes) and shend (shame), and his tendency to coin others, like mercify, to suit
his own purposes.
It is Spenser's idealism, his love of beauty, and his exquisite melody which have caused him to
be known as "the poets' poct." Nearly all our subsequent singers acknowledge their delight in
him and their indebtedness, Macaulay alone among critics voices a fault which all who are not
poets quickly feel, namely that, with all Spenser's excellences, he is difficult to read. The
modern man loses himself in the confused allegory of the Faery Queen, skips all but the marked
passages, and softly closes the book in gentle weariness. Even the best of his longer poems,
while of exquisite workmanship and delightfully melodious, generally fail to hold the reader's
attention. The movement is languid: there is little dramatic interest, and only a suggestion of
humor. The very melody of his verses sometimes grows monotonous, like a Strauss waltz too
long continued. We shall best appreciate Spenser by reading at first only a few well-chosen
selections from the Fuery Queen and the Shepherd's Calendar, and a few of the minor poems
which exemplify his wonderful melody
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