Balti state university a. Russo chair of english philology

 
 
Finally of course there was the heroic mode with its value of honour, battle courage, loyalty, 
leadership, endurance etc.
Its chief genre of the heroic mode was the epic – a poem about the heroic deeds of a person or a group 
of people. An example of an epic of the time was Fairy Queen by E. Spenser in which he devised an 
elaborate nine line stanza later called the Spenserian stanza.
Edmond Spenser
(1552 – 1599)
The greatest non-dramatic poet of the English Renaissance, Edmond Spenser was born in London 
probably in 1552. He studied at Cambridge as a “sizar” (poor scholar). He started his career by translating 
some poems. From his correspondence with his friend, Gabriel Harvey, we see that he was interested in 
theories of poetry. After receiving the BA and the MA degrees he served as a secretary to several prominent 
men, such as Dr. John Yond, and Sir Philip Sidney, whom he later dedicated his poem Shepherd‟s Calendar 
(1579). 

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Spenser was a prolific experimenter, who made further innovations in the later poems. He adapted the 
Italian canzone forms in the Epithalamion, built a special rhyme scheme of the Spenserian sonnet. Many 
English poets, such as Shelley, Byron, Keats, Tennyson, etc. learned the art of versification from Spenser.
„Spenser was a complex genius who cannot be put into neatly labelled categories. He was strongly 
influenced by the Renaissance Neoplatonism, but he remained earthly and practical. He was a lover and a 
celebrator of physical beauty, yet sternly moral/1. He was greatly influenced by Puritanism, remained a 
protestant and portrayed the Catholic church as a villain in Fairie Queene.
 
The Shepheardes Calendar (1579) 
The poem is written in 12 eclogues, each corresponding to a month of the year. Each one is prefaced 
by an illustrative woodcut representing the characters or the theme of the poem. Each month is represented 
on these pictures by the sign of the zodiac. The eclogues were first used by Virgil. The eclogues of Spenser, 
as Virgil‟s represent dialogues between shepherds, reflecting the moods, feelings and attitudes of the simple, 
rural life. But some of its parts criticize the world as compared to the ideal pastoral life. At times his 
eclogues become a didactic or satirical comment on contemporary affairs. The commentator “E.K” divides 
the Calendar into three groups: plaintive, recreative, and moral.