Thinking Activity : Age of Chaucer to Elizabeth

 

Thinking Activity:

              Age of Chaucer to Elizabeth

                                 Edmund Spenser 

            This BlogSpot is in response to the thinking activity on Age of Chaucer to Elizabeth. This task was assigned by Barad sir. 

   Edmund Spenser was born in 1552, London and died in 1599 at Westminster. Spenser's literary career started with the publication of 'The Shepherd's Calendar' in 1579. 

   

          Edmund Spenser is the greatest non dramatic poet of the Elizabeth age. He is called the poet of creativity and mediaeval allegory. He is considered as the greatest poet of his age. Charles Lamb has rightly said ' The poet's poet'. He was the 'prince of the poet'. 

      His poetical works :

                               

1.      The Shepherd's Calendar 

                             The Shepherd’s Calendar is a remarkable poem written by Edmund Spenser . It is a pastoral romance poem. It is divided into 12 parts. Each part corresponds to a month in the year. There are dialogues between shepherd’s on love, religion, poetry and other matters. The Shepheardes Calender, series of poems by Edmund Spenser, published in 1579 and considered to mark the beginning of the English Renaissance in literature.

2. The Faerie queene

 

                                               

           

  The Faerie Queene is the greatest poem written by Spenser. It is the longest poem of English poem. It is an allegory prince Arthur is the hero of the poem. Giants, Dragons, Dwarfs knights are the character of the poem. The plot is made of enchantments, love passage and endless fighting. It is very hard poem common reader can not understand this poem.

    There are some defeats in The Faerie Queene. It is extremely artificial, Spenser becomes a languid story teller. It is an allegory but it is very difficult to understand.

 

                         The study of the Faerie Queene should be preceded by a review of the great age in which it was written. An intimate relation exists between the history of the English nation and the works of English authors. This close connection between purely external events and literary masterpieces is especially marked in a study of the Elizabethan Age. To understand the marvelous outburst of song, the incomparable drama, and the stately prose of this period, one must enter deeply into the political, social, and religious life of the times.

3. Amoretti (A Sonnet Sequence) :

                                          

                                               

                      Amoretti is a sonnet cycle written by Edmund Spenser in the 16th century. The cycle describes his courtship and eventual marriage to Elizabeth Boyle.

                    Amoretti is a sonnet written by Edmund  Spenser. It is a series of 88 sonnets. They described the progress of his love for Elizabethan Boyle who was married in 1594. Amoretti was first published in 1595 in London by William Ponsonby. It was printed as part of a volume entitled Amoretti and Epithalamion.

4. Epithalamion

                                                

                                                  

     Epithalamion is an Ode written by Edmund Spenser. His marriage with Elizabeth Boyle inspired him to write this ode .It is a wedding ode (hymns celebrating wedding) ceremony of Spenser and Elizabethan. Epithalamion is an ode written by Edmund Spenser to his bride, Elizabeth Boyle, on their wedding day in 1594. It was first published in 1595 in London by William Ponsonby as part of a volume entitled Amoretti and Epithalamion. Written not long since by Edmund Spenser.

*Spenser's contribution in English poetry

1.   Poet's poet

 Spenser is considered the poet's poet in England because he set about to perform the great work for the glorification of English poetry which no one had done before Chaucer. 

2.  Spenser gave England the poetry great in kind, in style and in thought. He showed the world that Modern England was capable of poetry as great as that of any other age.

3. Spenser tried successfully to achieve the vital and permanent qualities that Virgil, Catullus ,Petrarch , achieved.

4.  Spenser studied their classical author's thoroughly. Spenser wanted to reorient English poetry and place it on a level with Europeans poetry. He performed this great tusk successfully. He outlived or completed with many of the classical writers for rendering of this great receive to England. Spenser is given the title of the poet's poet.

• Conception of poetry: 

          Spenser is the poet’s poet and the second father of English poetry , because it was he, and not Chaucer , who gave to the other English poets a high and noble conception of the work of a poet. He believed that  the poet was a creator like God and so shared some of his immortality. The poet should work with faith and devotion because he was sure to be rewarded with immortal fame, powerful empires, great and noble civilizations , and deeds of men may be destroyed and forgotten. Spencer has forcefully proclaimed faith in the permanence of poetry and immortality of poets in his poetry. 

• Influence 

  

                      Spenser’s  influence is very profound and deep on the writers and poets of the 17th , 18th , and the 19th centuries.  Dryden frankly confessed that Spenser had been his matter in English and adds that, No man was never born with a greater genius  or more knowledge to support it.  Alexander pope praises him and James Thomson referred to him as, ‘ My master Spenser’ and wrote one of the most delightful to English poems in the Standard popularized by him. Keats, and the Pre-Raphaelites were inspired by Spenser's word painting and picturesque description.  Edmund Spenser is the poet’s poet in the true sense. 

                               

• Word Painting: 

               Spenser’s word painting is unique and unsurpassable . He is the greatest  painter of words- pictures in the English language  . His pictorial art has been a source of inspiration for English poets ever since. He  gives us fine and picturesque descriptions of places.  One of Bender's most important points is that Spenser, with his pictorialism, is not trying to be like a painting, but trying to approximate visual experience.    

• His Diction       

                         Spenser’s services to style, diction and versification are innumerable. He was a Craftsman by birth and training . He knew that no poet could be really great who had acquired knowledge and skill in his own craft. In his age the English language and grammar were still in a flux, and as renew points out “He treated the English language as if it belonged to  him and not to it”. He coined new words, imported many from France and Italy, and saved many obsolete words from oblivion. ‘Spenserian stanza’ is his greatest contribution in versification.  

• Conclusion:

                         Spenser has created profound influence on the poets of all ages and all categories. His contribution can not be overlooked. He is rightly called “The Poet’s Poet” for his above mentioned contributions.

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