Lecture 4 Literature of the 16th century. The Renaissance

Edmund Spenser (1552 - 1599) 
Known as the "prince of poets" in his time, Edmund Spenser is generally 
regarded as the greatest non-dramatic poet of the Elizabethan age. He was born in 
London to a poor family and was educated at Cambridge on a scholarship. He 
studied philosophy, rhetoric, Italian, French, Latin, and Greek. Spenser is sometimes 
called "the poet's poet" because many later English poets learned the art of 
versification from his works. He created a sonnet form of his own, the Spenserian 
sonnet. He is the author of the poems "Shepherd's Calendar" (1579). "The Faerie 
Queene" (The Fairy Queen, 1595)), the sonnet cycle "Amoretti" (1594) and beautiful 
marriage hymns "Epithalamion" (1594), "Prothalamion"(1595). 
Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar" was dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney. In the work 
the author comments on contemporary affairs, some lines of it are didactic or 
satirical. This work consists of 12 eclogues, or dialogues, between shepherds (one 
for each month of the year). The most important of these is "October" which deals 
with the problem of poetry in contemporary life and the responsibility of the poet. 
The poet's huge poem "The Faerie Queene" (only six books out of the planned 
twelve were completed) describes nature, or picturesque allegorical scenes. The 
stanza of the work was constructed by Spenser and is called the Spenserian stanza 
after him. Many other poets, e.g. Bums, Byron, Shelley, used Spenserian stanzas in 

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some of their poems. Spenser, like all great artists, felt the form and pressure of his 
time conditioning his writing. He was aware of a desire to make English a fine 
language, full of magnificent words, with its roots in the older and popular traditions 
of the native tongue. He had the ambition to write (in English) poems, which would 
be great and revered as the classical epics had been. His mind looked out beyond the 
Court to the people, to their superstitions and faiths. In him the medieval and 
Renaissance meet, the modern and the classical, the courtly and popular. 
The title of his sonnet cycle "Amoretti" means "little love stories". The cycle is 
dedicated to Elizabeth Boyle. At that time Spenser was in love with her and his 
sonnets tell the story of their romance. His sonnets are melodious and expressive. 
One of the sonnets from "Amoretti" is given below: