Edmund spenser (1552-1599)

EDMUND SPENSER (1552-1599)

Spenser was born in London in 1552 in a middle class family. After studying at Cambridge he entered the service of the Earl of Leicester

The Sheperd's calendar, a pastoral poem brought him fame. He finally obtained a pension in 1590 for his long epic poem, The Faerie Queen

In the late 1580s Spencer went to Ireland. There he wrote a prose tract about England's exploitation (sfruttamento) of Ireland, there he also married Elizabeth Boyle whom (alla quale) he dedicated his collection of sonnets, Amoretti

The Faerie Queen is Spenser's masterpiece . It is an epic poem in six book's dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.

It combines elements from different tradition:

Medieval Romans

Epic elements from Ariosto and Tasso

The works of Chaucer

Christian legends, medieval allegory, Bible

This poem, destined to noblemen, celebrated in verse the glories of England, her Queen and the Reformed English Church. The magical atmosphere of this poem conferred (conferì) to Spenser the title of "Poets' Poet"

Spenser used a metre called "the Spenserian Stanza". It consists of nine lines, eight decasyllables followed by an alexandrine (twelve-syllable line) with the rhyme scheme A B A B B C B C C.