Biography of Edmund Spenser Essay

being in the Old English poem Beowulf and in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. In both of these

The sixteenth century brought many to focus more abundantly on the internal trials rather than the outward appearances of individuals. This caused various writers and philosophers to begin evaluating the importance of every person. Because of this, the idea of renaissance humanism was inevitably created. In simple terms, humanism is the belief that every individual, putting aside his or her rank, is of equal importance. A better understanding of renaissance humanism can be reached after reviewing the shift in society, religious change, and moral belief of the sixteenth century. Many literary works, including Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, helped to shape the ideals of renaissance humanism. These

       From 1805 until the present there have been introduced an abundance of paraphrases, translations, adaptations, summaries, versions and illustrations of Beowulf in modern English and in foreign languages due mostly to two reasons: the desire to make the poem accessible, and the desire to read the exotic (Osborn 341). It is the purpose of this essay to present a brief history of this development of the popularity of the poem and then compare some of the translations with respect to some more difficult passages in the poem Beowulf.

The Seven Deadly Sins is a major aspect to the religion of Christianity. Religion in the Middle Ages was exceedingly important and the central character to the lives of the people living in this time era. In early fourteenth century, Robert Manning of Brunne wrote a poem of an educational text informing people to avoid the seven deadly sins. Sometime later, in the late 1500s, Edmund Spenser wrote a book entitled The Faerie Queene and in Book 1, Canto 4, Spenser discusses the Seven Deadly Sins as the two characters, Redcrosse and Duessa, embark on their journey to the sinful House of Pride. Spenser has a unique way of which he alters to readers an artful conception of such a broad aspect

In the Anglo-Saxon epic poems “The Wife’s Lament”, “The Wanderer”, and “The Seafarer”, the authors make their poetry much more interesting and enjoyable by inserting literary devices that add meaning and cohesiveness to each line. Each poem contains multiple literary devices such as kennings, caesuras, and imagery. These tools work together in order to add mood and transparency to the poetry.

In Book Two, Chaucer changes his course from the past into the present. The topics of Book One and Two are linked as two sources of the poem, tradition and

Geoffrey Chaucer lived from thirteen-forty-three to fourteen-hundred. “Chaucer is one of the most interesting writers in English literature because he straddles two worlds: the Middle Ages and the Renaissance” (Collin 1). He wrote his poems in middle-English, which is called Vernacular. “Geoffrey Chaucer chose to write his poetry in the Vernacular – the everyday language – of his time and place” (Chaucer et al. 18). Perhaps one of Chaucer’s most important literary works, “The Canterbury Tales,” sets the stage for a more in depth understanding of the feudal systems and classes of the Middle Ages.

On the topic of the Prioress’ literacy and “fluent French,” it seemed as though education was a common blessing amongst all of the middle class (Chaucer 124-125). Researcher Tim Lambert in, The Daily Life in England in The Middle Ages wrote that, “grammar schools began opening up across England and it was not uncommon for middle class children to educated” in the traditional sense (Lambert). While the characters in the prologue had already been educated in their homeland, their offspring and generations of middle class citizens to come would all be educated. Another example of education in the prologue was when the narrator spoke of the clerk. Despite there not

Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene is well known as an allegorical work, and the poem is typically read in relation to the political and religious context of the time. The term allegory tends to be loosely defined, rendering a whole work an extended metaphor, or even implying “any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning”(Cuddon 20). In true Spenserian style, with everything having double meanings, both uses of the term allegory are applicable to his writing.

The poem, "The Faerie Queene", is a story about a courageous knight who goes through great trials and fights monsters. This in itself is entertaining but, it also has many allegorical references to Christianity. Many times Spenser talks about things when in reality he's really talking something closer to home. For instance, this faerie land he talks about sounds like he is referring to England, the country where he's from. Also, the title Faerie Queene itself is seems to represent Queen Elizabeth, the Queen of England. Redcrosse, the hero of the poem, is a major part of this allegory. He is called the "Knight of Holinesse" which is a reference to being holy and worshiping God. He represents the lonely Christian on a journey to put

    Edmund Spenser in his epic romance, The Faerie Queene, invents and depicts a wide array of female figures.  Some of these women, such as Una and Caelia, are generally shown as faithful, virtuous and overall lovely creatures.  Other feminine characters, such as Errour, Pride, and Duessa are false, lecherous and evil.  This might seem to be the end of Spenser's categorization of women; that they are either good or bad.  Yet upon closer examination one finds that Spenser seems to be struggling to portray women more honestly, to depict the "complex reality of woman" (Berger, 92).  Spenser does not simply "idealize women or the feminine viewpoint" as he could easily do

Spenser also wrote the famous wedding hymns Prothalmion and Epithalmion. The Faerie Queene is the masterpiece of Spenser. He modeled it on Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. It contains six books each of which describes the adventure and triumph of a knight who represents a moral virtue. It is a didactic romance. For this he invented a poetic form known as Spenserian stanza. Spenser's idealism, his love of beauty and his exquisite melody has earned him the name "The Poets' Poet."

("Carol Lazzaro-Weis - Department of Romance Language & Literatures - University of Missouri." Carol Lazzaro-Weis - Department of Romance Language & Literatures - University of Missouri. N.p., n.d. Web.)

The Faerie Queene is an important romantic epic that more than being just poetry, represents the protestant imagery in terms of kinds of individual virtue , the forces of temptation and human weaknesses to which the greatest of persons can succumb and, of course, the humanist ideals of its time. His author, Edmund Spenser, makes use of biblical and classic allegories to tell his story, that more than have been a religious writing, the poem’s purpose was to educate, to turn young men into gentlemen and to make a declaration of faith in England. However, the more important purpose of the Faerie Queene is its allegory, the meaning behind its characters and events. The story's setting is a fanciful "faerie land," that

Some people collected the sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer's Works. He set the goal line for all other English authors, including, presentation, quality and success of actually printing. (Geoffrey Chaucer) When these versions of his poems were printed, that was the time where Geoffrey Chaucer truly became famous.(Geoffrey Chaucer)