I will have to disagree with some of you about Edmund Spenser. While I acknowledge that his symbolism can be a bit one-dimensional, and his themes overly idealistic, I still think that The Faerie Queen is a poem that is exemplary both in scope and in its style. It seems that most of you do not like the work because you do not like the author, and while I agree that he seems obsequious and fawning, this does not necessarily take away from his work. It’s easy to scoff at his work and write him off as one of Elizabeth’s lackeys, but Spenser did create a new poetic device when he created the Spenserian stanza, which isn’t exactly an easy feat. Beside its good stylistic points, I don’t think that The Faerie Queen should be derided just because Spenser so blatantly praises Elizabeth and the Tudor dynasty in it. There are a number of historical poems that praise reigning monarchs and empires, and I don’t see why Spenser’s poem should be viewed any differently just because he was trying to get patronage for it. I don’t think he was a sell-out, either, because the views he expressed really seemed to be his own (the anti-Catholic sentiments, for example.)
- Lauren NuDelman
Lauren,
ReplyDeleteThanks for coming to Spenser's defense. Yes, in some respects what he wrote was epic considering there were no English epics at this time. The next time we would see one would be Milton's Paradise Lost.