Edmund Spenser 1552 1599 The Poets Poet Historical

Edmund Spenser (1552? -1599) The Poet’s Poet

• Historical Background. Renaissance • Spenser’s Life • Spenser’s Work • Spenser’s Achievement

Renaissance • • Origin Social Reform Humanists in England

Humanism • The humanists took great interest in the welfare of human beings. – It was against human nature to sacrifice the happiness of THIS life for an after life. – Man should be given full freedom to enrich their intellectual and emotional life. As shown in this painting of Massimiliano Sforza, the son of the duke of Milan, attending to his lessons, the humanities during the Renaissance was emphasized disciplines such as history, poetry, and ethics that drew on the teachings of classical Greece and Rome.

Humanism in Literature Humanists sang in praise of man and of the pursuit of happiness in this life. • What a piece of work is a man!—Shakespeare’s Hamlet • Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please, Resolve me of all ambiguities, Perform what desperate enterprise I will? —Christopher Marlowe, The Tragic History of Dr. Faustus • Gather ye rosebuds while you may, …—Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time”

Spenser’s life • • • Early life in London Education at Cambridge Poet and secretary Poor famous exile Return to London

Spenser’s Works • • • The Shepheardes Calendar (1579). The Faerie Queene (1580 -1596). Epithalamion(1594). Amoretti(1595) Prothalamion (1596) Veue of the Present State of Ireland(1633)

The Shepheardes Calendar • Spenser’s first major poem, dedicated to Sir Phillips Sidney. • Main theme: love, poetry and religion • The poems are peopled by shepherds who represent Spenser and his friends. Spenser appears as Colin Clout, whose love affair and rejection by Rosalinde centralize the poem artistically. Sir Philip Sidney (1554 -1586)

The Shepheardes Calendar • The work was designed to an English poetic tradition whose master Spenser correctly recognized to be Chaucer. • This work demonstrates the great poetic flexibility of the English language. It is a series of 12 pastoral poems written in a variety of meters and employing a vocabulary of obsolete words and coined expressions to give a suggestion of antiquity.

The Faerie Queene • Spenser's skillful blending of religious and historical allegory with chivalric romance. • As originally planned, according to his introductory letter addressed to Sir Walter Raleigh, the work was to consist of 12 books, each made up of 12 cantos. • Only 6 books were completed, and published together for the first time in 1609. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 -1618)

Allegorical romance As outlined in the introduction, • Gloriana, the queen of Fairyland, represents both glory and Queen Elizabeth I, in whose honor • 12 knights, who represented the qualities of the chivalric virtues, engage in a series of adventures. Throughout the narrative, the figure of • Arthur, the perfect knight, also appears. The six completed books relate the adventures of • the knights who represented the qualities of holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice, and courtesy.

In The Faerie Queene What do the following figures represent? • The Red Cross knight • Una • Archimago • Sansfoy, Sansloy, Sansjoy, etc.

In the Excerpt • Who have been portrayed here? • Why were they portrayed in such way? • What have you found in the language style?

Seven Sins • • Are these lines similar? Pride Idlenesse Gluttony Lechery Avarice Envie Wrath Her hose were of the finest scarlet red And gartered tight; her shoes were soft and new. Bold was her face, handsome, and red in hue. A worthy woman all her life, what’s more She’d had five husbands, all at the church door, Apart from other company in youth; No need just now to speak of that, forsooth. … There was no pardoner of equal grace, For in his trunk he had a pillow-case Which he asserted was Our Lady’s veil. He said he had a gobbet of the sail Saint Peter had the time when he made bold To walk the waves, till Jesus Christ took hold. —Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Spenserian Stanza • verse form composed of nine lines, the first eight in iambic pentameter and the last an alexandrine, in iambic hexameter. the rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. • (Alexandrine: in English poetry, a line of verse that has six iambic feet and usually a caesura after the third foot)

Suddein upriseth from her stately place / Ⅹ | Ⅹ/ |Ⅹ |Ⅹ Ⅹ | Ⅹ / |Ⅹ |Ⅹ / | The royall Dame, and for her coche doth call: Ⅹ / | Ⅹ Ⅹ| Ⅹ /| All hurtlen forth, and she with Princely pace, / / |Ⅹ |Ⅹ / | Ⅹ /| |Ⅹ / As faire Aurora in her purple pall, Ⅹ / |Ⅹ |Ⅹ Ⅹ| Ⅹ / | Out of the East the dawning day doth call, / Ⅹ |Ⅹ / | Ⅹ /| |Ⅹ / |Ⅹ |Ⅹ So forth she comes: her brightness brode doth blaze; Ⅹ / | Ⅹ /| The heapes of people thronging in the hall, Ⅹ / |Ⅹ |Ⅹ / | Ⅹ Ⅹ| Ⅹ / | Do ride each other, upon her to gaze: Ⅹ / | / Ⅹ|Ⅹ Ⅹ| / Ⅹ |Ⅹ |Ⅹ / | Her glorious glitterand light doth all men eyes amaze. Ⅹ /|Ⅹ / | Ⅹ /| / / |Ⅹ |Ⅹ / | A B B C C

Spenserian sonnet The rhyme scheme is abab bcbc cdcd ee, e. g. One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Agayne I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray. “Vayne man, ” sayd she, “that doest in vaine assay, A mortall thing so to immortalize. ” “Not so, ” quod I, “let baser things devize, To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens wryte your glorious name. Where whenas death shall the world subdew, Our love shall live, and later life renew. ” (Sonnet 75)

Achievements • His skill in forging a new alloy from the classics, Chaucer, and the French and Italian Renaissance poets was recognized and revered at his time. • The vividness of his scenes, the richness of his imagery, and the variety of his sound effects taught a lot of craftsmen in verse, e. g. , Milton, Pope, Burns, Keats, and Tennyson.

Assignments • Read from p. 79 to p. 87.