The Poet’s Poet, Pastoral, and Allegory
Middle class childhood. Went to the Merchant Taylor’s School and
later Cambridge.
Wrote Shepheard’s Calendar when he was just 27. One goal was to
prove that real literature could be written in English, to become the
Chaucer of the Elizabethan era.
Became Secretary to Lord Grey who was a ruler in Ireland, and lived
in Ireland (working) most of his life.
His work was essentially to assist Lord Grey to control the Irish
people. He wrote A View of the Present State of Ireland which
“categorizes the ‘evils’ of the Irish people into three prominent
categories: laws, customs, and religion” (Spenser).
In spite of his terrible politics, he is considered one of the greatest
English poets.
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Copied from Norton Topics Online: 16th Century
Spenser spent most of his adult life as an English
planter in Ireland, where uprisings against English
rule were a regular occurrence. A View, which is
written as a dialogue between two Englishmen,
examines the reasons why previous attempts to
subdue the Irish had failed and proposes strategies by
which English rule could be imposed once and for all.
In the first half of the work, Irenius, an expert on
Irish affairs, describes to Eudoxus the evil customs of
the Irish, condemning their nomadic herding
practices, their religion, their social and familial
organization, their bards, their hair and dress, and so
on. He derives the origins of the Irish from the
barbarous Scythians and explains the circumstances
which led to the degeneration of the Old English.
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In the second half, he outlines a program for the military
pacification of Ireland. The brutality of Spenser's proposals, and
his insistence on martial rather than common law as the solution
to the Irish problem, may account for the book's failure to appear
in print until 1633; on the other hand, it may not have been
Spenser's views in particular, but discussion of Ireland in general,
that the authorities were anxious to keep out of the public
sphere.
Irenius explains to Eudoxus how the Anglo-Norman families who
had conquered and settled in Ireland four hundred years earlier
had "degenerated," adopting the customs and language of the
Irish. In the second passage, Irenius describes the famine in the
Irish province of Munster in 1581. Spenser's proposal that famine
was the best means to reduce the Irish to permanent submission
was brutal even by the standards of English colonial policy. That
Spenser could seriously advocate that the English deliberately
starve the Irish population makes the bitter irony of Jonathan
Swift's Modest Proposal (1729; NAEL 8, 1.2462) even more
devastating.
 Published
to sell (even though there is
material which flatters Queen Elizabeth)
 It was illustrated
 Every
month has a different style of poetry –
and he invented each one!!!
GOE, little booke: thy selfe present,
As child whose parent is unkent,
To him that is the president
Of noblesse and of chevalree:
And if that Envie barke at thee,
As sure it will, for succoure flee
Under the shadow of his wing;
And asked, who thee forth did bring,
A shepheards swaine, saye, did thee sing,
All as his straying flocke he fedde:
And when his honor has thee redde,
Crave pardon for my hardyhedde.
But if that any aske thy name,
Say thou wert base begot with blame:
Forthy thereof thou takest shame.
And when thou art past jeopardee,
Come tell me what was sayd of mee:
And I will send more after thee.
IMMERITÔ.
A SHEPEHEARDS boye (no better doe him call)
When winters wastful spight was almost spent,
All in a sunneshine day, as did befall,
Led forth his flock, that had bene long ypent.
So faynt they woxe, and feeble in the folde,
That now unnethes their feete could them
uphold
Willye
THomalin, why sytten we soe,
As weren ouerwent with woe,
Vpon so fayre a morow?
The ioyous time now nighest fast,
That shall alegge this bitter blast,
And slake the winters sorowe.
Thomalin.
Sicker Willye, thou warnest well:
For Winters wrath beginnes to quell,
And pleasant spring appeareth.
The grasse now ginnes to be refresht,
The Swallow peepes out of her nest,
And clowdie Welkin cleareth.
Willye.
Seest not thilke same Hawthorne studde,
How bragly it beginnes to budde,
And vtter his tender head?
Flora now calleth forth eche flower,
And bids make ready Maias bowre,
That newe is vpryst from bedde.
 “the
pastoral tradition refers to a lineage of
creative works that idealize rural life and
landscapes” (Poetic form: Pastoral)
 “pastoral art often contains a strong element
of social critique, disguised or otherwise.
Pastoral's lovely settings and innocentseeming characters provide artists cover for
criticizing certain aspects of city life, or
certain things about the political regime
under which they live, and so forth. .”
(Drake “English 252”)
 First
part published 1590
 Second part: 1596
 Dedicated to Elizabeth (the “Faerie
Queene”) in hopes of getting support from
her (which he did – 50 pounds per year)
 "The
epic is a long narrative poem involving
heroic figures in the performance of heroic
deeds, usually extended over a wide
geographical area; it is written in a heroic or
grandiose manner" (Norton and Rushton).
 "a long narrative poem presenting characters
of high position in a series of adventures
which form an organic whole through their
relation to a central figure of heroic
proportions and through their development
of episodes important to the development of
a nation or race" (Thrall and Hibbard)
 Is
it written in an “heroic or grandiose
manner”?
 Are the characters “of high position”?
 Does The Faerie Queene say it will connect
to the development of the nation?
 Does it start in medias res?
 As
a literary genre, romance or chivalric
romance is a style of heroic prose or verse
narrative . . . They were fantastic stories
about marvel-filled adventures, often of a
knight portrayed as having heroic qualities,
who goes on a quest. Some popular
romances used the chivalric romance with
ironic or satiric intent. (cut from “Romance
heroic literature”)
 Do
you see marvels or adventures?
 Is there a quest?
 What about the style?
 Do you see evidence of ironic or satiric
intent?
 Spenserian
spelling
 Spenserian stanza
 Faerie Land – really?
 Part of his purpose is to establish a deeplyrooted English literature that connects all
the way back to the Fall of Troy
 Being connected to the Roman Empire (which
the Brits could since they had been
conquered by Rome) was a way of claiming a
literary inheritance
From Concise Encyclopedia
Work of written, oral, or visual expression that uses
symbolic figures, objects, and actions to convey
truths or generalizations about human conduct or
experience. It encompasses such forms as the fable
and parable. Characters often personify abstract
concepts or types, and the action of the narrative
usually stands for something not explicitly stated.
Symbolic allegories, in which characters may also
have an identity apart from the message they convey,
have frequently been used to represent political and
historical situations and have long been popular as
vehicles for satire. Spenser’s long poem The Faerie
Queen is a famous example of a symbolic allegory.

She is accompanied by a white lamb. What does that
signify? Why can she get a lion as her protector?
 Una
travels with Red Crosse – but what if
they get separated?
 What if they fall into Error?
 Una’s parents are being held captive in a
castle by a dragon and she needs a knight to
slay the dragon. What could this mean?
 What does it mean that Una is accompanied
by a Dwarf? What if he gets lost?
 Do you see anything in the story that might
represent the Catholic Church, which
Elizabeth’s father (Henry VIII) and she have
rejected?
 Two

great villains of Faerie Queene
Archimago means architect or Arch Mage
(possible equivalent to the architect of the poem
or the magician who creates the poem?)
 She
is two-sided, deceptive, different from
Una (one sided)
 Hawthorne,
Melville, and Poe all read
Spenser
 Hawthorne even named his first daughter
Una
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[one story] is the sweetest and sublimest thing that
has been written since Spenser wrote. Nay, there is
nothing in Spenser that surpasses it, perhaps, nothing
that equals it. And the test is this: read any canto in
"The Faery Queen," and then read "A Select Party,"
and decide which pleases you the most,--that is, if
you are qualified to judge. Do not be frightened at
this; for when Spenser was alive, he was thought of
very much as Hawthorne is now--was generally
accounted just such a "gentle" harmless man. It may
be, that to common eyes, the sublimity of Hawthorne
seems lost in his sweetness,--as perhaps in this same
"Select Party" his; for whom, he has builded so august
a dome of sunset clouds, and served them on richer
plate, than Belshazzar's when he banquetted his lords
in Babylon.
Spenser writes like Hawthorne: “knowing how doubtfully all
Allegories may be construed and this booke of mine, which I
have entitled the Faerie Queene, being a continued Allegory,
or darke conceit . . .To some I know this Methode will seeme
displeasaunt . . . Thus clowdily enwrapped in Allegoricall
devises”
 Do
you see Hawthorne or Melville with an
ironic or satiric intent?
 Does either Hawthorne or Melville
deliberately place the story in an older era?
 Use historical style or themes so as to
connect American literature to its roots in
the past?
 Does either Hawthorne or Melville write
about a quest?

Is that quest connected to the nation and even
the survival of that nation?
Melville to Hawthorne after receiving a letter about MobyDick:
A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on
account of your having understood the book. I have
written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. . .
. I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the
Supper, and that we are the pieces. My dear Hawthorne,
the atmospheric skepticisms steal into me now, and make
me doubtful of my sanity in writing you thus. But, believe
me, I am not mad, most noble Festus! But truth is ever
incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the
concussion is a little stunning. Farewell. Don't write a word
about the book. That would be robbing me of my miserly
delight. I am heartily sorry I ever wrote anything about you
-- it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be done growing? As
long as we have anything more to do, we have done
nothing. So, now, let us add Moby Dick to our blessing, and
step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish; -- I have
heard of Krakens.
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As you read Faerie Queene, think of Young
Goodman Brown and Hester Prynne, the
characters.
 As Red Crosse Knight trusts Una, Young Goodman
Brown begins by trusting Faith and Hester began
(before the book) by trusting Dimmesdale
 Both journey into the woods
 Both make discoveries in the woods
 Both are “allegories”
 What is Spenser doing with allegory that
Hawthorne may have learned?
 Find a line that stands out for you.
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