Author Series 17 - Edmund Spenser

Author series 17

Edmund Spenser

* 1552 -1599

* Charles Lamb called him “poet’s poet”.

* In 1594, after first wife died, Spenser married to Elizabeth Boyle on 11 Jun 1594, to whom he addressed the Amoretti Sonnets.

* From 1580, Spenser lived in Ireland.

* The Image of their marriage celebration is depicted in Epithalamion.

*For Faerie Queene, he obtained a life time pension of £50 a year from Queen Elizabeth.

* In 1596 Spenser wrote a prose pamphlet “A View of the Present State of Ireland” in the form of a dialogue.

       The pamphlet argued that Ireland would never be totally ‘pacified’ by the English until its indigenous language and customs had been destroyed, if necessary by violence.

* In 1611, The first folio edition of Spenser’s work was published.

* Ben Jonson opined that “Spenser writ no language.”

Important Works of Spenser

1. Faerie Queene (1590; 3 book, 1596; 6 books)

2. The Shepherd’s Calendar

3. Amoretti Sonnets (1595)

4. Epithalamion (1595)

5. Prothalamion (1596)

-The line from this song – “Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song” is used by T.S. Eliot in his The Wasteland.

6. Arstrophel (1595)

- It is a pastoral elegy written on the death of Sir Phillip Sidney and was dedicated to Sidney’s wife, the Counters of Essex.

7. Collin Clouts Come Home Again (1595)

- It is a pastoral poem by Spenser published in 1595.

- He dedicated it to Sir Walter Raleigh.

8. Mother Hubbard’s Tale or Prosopopia

- It is a poem by Spenser as a part of his collections “Complaint” but it was sold separately as fourth part.