Spenser, Edmund
ca. 1552–1599 English poet

Born a commoner in London, Edmund Spenser became both a gentleman and the leading English poet of his day. Scholars view him as one of four authors whose work forms the foundation of English literature, along with medieval* author Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and John Milton. Spenser produced memorable and distinctive verse in every major form and invented a variety of new verse and stanza forms. He also developed the idea of poetry as a noble calling, which inspired many later writers.

Spenser's Life. Scholars know little about Spenser's early life. Some evidence indicates that his father was a poor cloth maker. As a boy Spenser attended the Merchant Taylors' School, which promoted the humanist* ideals of scholarship and public service. After receiving his bachelor's and master's degrees from Cambridge University, Spenser became secretary to Dr. John Young, the bishop of Rochester. He later entered the service of the earl of Leicester, who became his patron* and introduced him to several other poets. In 1579 Spenser married Machabyas Chylde, who bore him two children.

A year later Spenser became private secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the new lord deputy of Ireland, then a colonial possession of England. Spenser moved with Lord Grey to Ireland and lived there for the rest of his life. He did, however, return to England several times to deliver messages to the queen and to oversee the publication of his books. In the late 1580s Spenser acquired Kilcolman Castle in Ireland, along with 3,000 acres of surrounding land.

In 1594 Spenser, whose first wife had died, married Elizabeth Boyle. A year later he lost his estate when an uprising broke out in Ireland and rebels looted and burned Kilcolman. In December 1598 Spenser made his last trip to England, where he died the following month. Many of England's noted poets attended his funeral, held in London's Westminster Abbey, and the queen, Elizabeth I, ordered a memorial for him (although none was ever actually built).

Spenser's Works. Spenser's first major work, The Shepheardes Calender, appeared in 1579. The book contains a dozen poems in the pastoral* style, one for each month of the year. The 12 sections tell the story of Colin Clout, a lovesick shepherd-poet who represents the author. This character later reappeared in The Faerie Queene and in a minor work called Colin Clout's Come Home Againe. Each verse begins with a woodcut* illustration and a brief summary of its content and ends with a motto, followed by scholarly notes. These notes, together with an introduction in which the poet praises his work, make the entire collection look like an edited classic. He dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to his friend, the poet Philip Sidney.

In 1590 Spenser gained literary fame for his publication of The Faerie Queene, an epic* about the growth of the English nation. Spenser did not deal directly with the military and political struggles of his time in this work, but instead created a lengthy allegory* set in a mythical Faeryland. Each section of the poem follows the adventures of a wandering knight or knights who represent a particular virtue, such as holiness, justice, or purity. These knights battle fantastic creatures that stand for various vices. Spenser links these tales together through the character of the legendary King Arthur. Arthur appears in this work not as England's national hero but as a youthful wanderer on a quest to find Gloriana, the queen of the fairies, who has appeared to him in a dream.The Faerie Queene blends together many literary forms, including folklore, romance*, and political theory.

Throughout the 1590s Spenser produced a variety of shorter poems. He described his Complaints, published in 1591, as "sundrie [assorted] small poemes of the worlds vanitie." His next collection, Amoretti and Epithalamion, is a series of sonnets* celebrating his courtship of and marriage to Elizabeth Boyle. He later produced another "marriage poem," entitled Prothalamion, in honor of the weddings of four English nobles.

Spenser's works influenced many generations of poets. The nine-line stanza* he created for The Faerie Queene, for example, was copied by several major English poets, including John Keats and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Spenser's portraits of feminine experience strongly influenced the late-Renaissance poet John Milton in his own portrayals of female characters, such as Eve in the epic Paradise Lost. For more than two centuries, Spenser's most original creation—his mythical Faeryland—became English literature's chief symbol for the poetic imagination. For authors of the Renaissance and later periods, Spenser became a model of the poet as a spokesman for his culture's lasting values.

(See alsoEnglish Language and Literature; Pastoral; Poetry; Poetry, English. )

* medieval

referring to the Middle Ages, a period that began around a.d. 400 and ended around 1400 in Italy and 1500 in the rest of Europe

* humanist

referring to a Renaissance cultural movement promoting the study of the humanities (the languages, literature, and history of ancient Greece and Rome) as a guide to living

* patron

supporter or financial sponsor of an artist or writer

* pastoral

relating to the countryside; often used to draw a contrast between the innocence and serenity of rural life and the corruption and extravagance of court life

* woodcut

print made from a block of wood with an image carved into it

* epic

long poem about the adventures of a hero

* allegory

literary or artistic device in which characters, events, and settings represent abstract qualities, and in which the author intends a different meaning to be read beneath the surface

* romance

adventure story of the Middle Ages, the forerunner of the modern novel

* sonnet

poem of 14 lines with a fixed pattern of meter and rhyme

* stanza

section of a poem; specifically, a grouping of lines into a recurring pattern determined by meter or rhyme scheme