Edmund Spenser, English poet of the Elizabethan era: biography and creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Who doesn't know William Shakespeare! He is called the king of English literature, but meanwhile, few people know that he had an older friend, a kind of teacher, who also did not a little for British literature, in particular poetry. We are talking about Edmund Spenser, and this material is dedicated to his biography and work.

Initial information

If Edmund Spenser, the Elizabethan poet, was an older contemporary of Shakespeare, you can imagine how long ago he lived!

In this case, there is absolutely nothing surprising in the fact that the exact date of birth of the "poet of poets" - and that is exactly how this talented author was called during the life of this talented author - is not known for certain. There are suggestions that this happy event happened either in 1552 or in 1553. The future writer was born in London, in a poor family, which, however, came from an ancient family (this family originated in the small town of Burnley, in Lancashire). Notexact information and about who Edmund Spenser's father was by profession. He probably served as a hired apprentice in the Tailors Guild. His name was John, his mother's name was Elizabeth. Edmund is known to have had at least one sister and at least several brothers.

School years

In 1561, the very Guild of tailors, in which, apparently, the father of the future great poet worked, founded his own school - however, only for merchant children. Eight or nine-year-old Spencer Jr., however, was enrolled in it - was it not because his father asked for him? - and along with other classmates began to gnaw at the granite of science. What was taught to the then schoolchildren in the Guild of tailors? Yes, everything, however, as elsewhere: languages (mandatory Greek and Latin, Hebrew was a plus - it was very unusual), spelling, ancient literature. The principal of the school was Richard Mulcaster, a well-known teacher and humanist, which is probably why the boys were taken seriously.

Edmund Spenser stayed at school until the age of sixteen or seventeen: he graduated from it in 1569, and the time spent there became happy for him, as it was marked by the beginning of creative activity. It was at school that Spencer began to write his first poems, and some of his attempts at writing were even published in a book by Jan van der Noodt, who placed them under the same cover as his own anti-Catholic treatise.

University years

In the same 1569, another significant event happened for Spencer: he was enrolled in Pembroke Hall, Cambridge University. Opposite his last namemade a note sizar - this meant that he was limited in funds and in exchange for housing and food he would perform various chores.

In Cambridge, the future luminary of English poetry continued to write, and also met many people who later had a great influence on him (including, and perhaps in the first place among them, the Cambridge teacher of rhetoric Gabriel Harvey, who laid the course Spencer's ship, helping him navigate the ocean of world literature). Basically, Edmund studied literature - however, more English than anything else.

The logical conclusion of his stay at the university, with which he finally parted in 1577, was the receipt by the future genius of English poetry, first of a bachelor's degree (in 1573), and then a master's degree (three years later).

The way forward

After graduating from university, our hero worked for a year in Kent as a secretary to the Bishop of Rochester, but then returned back. Even before his departure, Edmund met the Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, an active statesman and far from the last person at court. After his return from Kent, Spencer entered his service.

Robert Dudley joined the number of those people who influenced Spencer and expressed his constant help and support. And it was Dudley who indirectly contributed to Spencer's acquaintance with Philip Sidney, another English poet, the creator of the Areopagus literary society, wheresubsequently adopted and Spencer and whose goal was the transformation of literature. A connoisseur of the latter, who was interested not only in its practice, but also in theory, Spencer was by no means averse to introducing something new into poetry.

In the service of Dudley Spencer stayed for no less than a year, after which, through his own efforts, he was transferred as a secretary to Lord Gray in Ireland, where there was a war going on at that time. The result of what the leprechauns saw and rethought in the country (including mainly political ones) was the only prose work of the poet - "A look at the current state of Ireland." The work was printed many years later - only in 1633.

In Ireland, Spencer lived a little over sixteen years (with a year-long break several times to go to England). There he became a landowner for the first time in his life - in 1582 he rented land and a house in County Kildare. His goal was to become a major owner and enter the circle of the local nobility, which gradually, in general, he succeeded. During the time he lived in Ireland, he changed positions and places of service several times, acquired many useful contacts and acquaintances. For example, it was in Ireland that he met W alter Raleigh, another Elizabethan favorite, poet and writer, who did much to ensure that Spencer's main work, The Faerie Queene, saw the light of day (we will return to him a little later).

At the end of the sixteenth century, an uprising began in Ireland, the estates burned, the feudal lords left their homes. This did not bypass the Spencer family -his estate was burned, his goods were plundered. Shortly after this incident, on official business, Spencer left for London, where he died suddenly in January 1599. He was only 46-47 years old.

Private life

Edmund Spenser has been married twice. He married for the first time in 1579, from this marriage he had a daughter and a son. The first wife died early, and in 1594 the poet married again. The second wife gave him a son.

During his stay at court, the already married Edmund had short love affairs with women. It is not known for certain whether Spencer also had relationships with men - some researchers argue that their relationship with Gabriel Harvey was not only friendly.

The work of Edmund Spenser

Having covered the details of the life of the English poet, now we can rightfully move on to talking about his work. And although it will not be possible to talk in detail about each of his works, we will nevertheless point out the most significant ones.

Shepherd calendar

This work was the first voluminous work written by Spencer and saw the light of day. Throughout his life, Spencer has worked in different genres, he made a significant contribution to different genres and left his mark, however, like many, he began with the pastoral (a work that describes the idyllic life of shepherds and shepherdesses in the bosom of nature). Just the same, the "Shepherd's Calendar" refers to the pastoral. Why a calendar? Yes, because there are twelve eclogues in the poem (an eclogue is a poem about a shepherd's life, usually a love one), the name of eachwhich coincides with the name of a particular month of the year.

Many characters of the "Shepherd's Calendar" had their prototypes in real life. So Edmund Spenser brought himself out there as Colin Clout. "The Shepherd's Calendar" caused a great response, had some success, and its author, as they say, woke up famous. The poem, which is now called the most important milestone in the development of British poetry, brought a good income to Spencer, he began to be welcomed at court, where he often went in the company of Robert Dudley.

Fairy Queen

Conceived long before that, the epic poem, "Spencer's life's work", "The Fairy Queen" was not published until 1590. Rather, only the first three out of six books were published at that time - it is from so many that the work consists (it also includes one fragment, known as the "Song of Variability"). However, their release was more than enough to immediately and unanimously recognize the Briton as the first among living poets.

According to Spencer himself, the general idea and meaning of creating this poetic opus was the idea to persuade any noble person - including Queen Elizabeth - to decent behavior, morality and virtue. When creating it, Edmund was inspired by such authors as Homer, Virgil and others.

"Fairy Queen" consists of six parts. Each of them presentsthe story of the life of some knight, some legend is told. In each book, one or another knight, personifying this or that virtue, must fight with some vice. By the way, one of these knights is King Arthur. As in The Shepherd's Calendar, the heroes of this epic drama have life prototypes. So, the ruler of the fairies is the sovereign of Britain herself.

Complaints Collection

This almanac, published in 1591, includes diverse works. This is a cycle of sonnets by Edmund Spenser, and translations, and nine poems - "The Ruins of Rome", for example, or "Tears of the Muses" - and even a fable. All these motley things are interconnected by themes - they are all about the transience of being and everything earthly and existing.

Contribution to English Literature

What did Edmund Spenser do for British poetry that gave him the right to be called the Poet of Poets? Pretty much everything. For example:

1. Brought a musicality to an English verse that had never seen it before.
2. Showed the possibility of metric diversity of poems.
3. Demonstrated the ability to preserve the sonority, plasticity and flexibility of the verse in any work.
4. Saturated poetry with images and alliterations.
5. Combined the Old British language with modern syntax, which improved the quality of the resulting poem.
6. Invented a stanza with nine lines (of which all but the last one is iambic pentameter, the last one is sixmeter).
7. Invented an updated form of the classic sonnet("chained quatrains").

This is the biography of Edmund Spenser, the poet of poets, in a sense, the creator of English literature.