Halleck's New English Literature · Chapter 31Edmund Spenser, 1552-1599
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[Illustration: EDMUND SPENSER.From a painting in Duplin Castle.]
Life and Minor Poems.—For one hundred and fifty-two years after Chaucer's death, in 1400, England had no great poet until Edmund Spenser was born in London in 1552. Spenser, who became the greatest non-dramatic poet of the Elizabethan age, was twelve years older than Shakespeare.
His parents were poor, but fortunately in Elizabethan times, as well as in our own days, there were generous men who found their chief pleasure in aiding others. Such a man assisted Spenser in going to Cambridge. Spenser's benefactor was sufficiently wise not to give the student enough to dwarf the growth of self-reliance. We know that Spenser was a sizar at Cambridge, that is, one of those students who, to quote Macaulay, "had to perform some menial services. They swept the court; they carried up the dinner to the fellows' table, and changed the plate and poured out the ale of the rulers of society." We know further that Spenser was handicapped by ill health during a part of his course, for we find records of allowances paid "Spenser aegrotanti."
After leaving Cambridge Spenser went to the north of England, probably in the capacity of tutor. While there, he fell in love with a young woman whom he calls Rosalind. This event colored his after life. Although she refused him, she had penetration enough to see in what his greatness consisted, and her opinion spurred him to develop his abilities as a poet. He was about twenty-five years old when he fell in love with Rosalind; and he remained single until he was forty-two, when he married an Irish maiden named Elizabeth. In honor of that event, he composed the Epithalamion, the noblest marriage song in any literature. So strong are early impressions that even in its lines he seems to be thinking of Rosalind and fancying that she is his bride.
After returning from the north, he spent some time with Sir Philip Sidney, who helped fashion Spenser's ideals of a chivalrous gentleman. Sidney's influence is seen in Spenser's greatest work, the Faerie Queene. Sir Walter Raleigh was another friend who left his imprint on Spenser.
In 1579, Spenser published the Shepherd's Calendar. This is a pastoral poem, consisting of twelve different parts, one part being assigned to each of the twelve months. Although inferior to the Faerie Queene, the Shepherd's Calendar remains one of the greatest pastoral poems in the English language.
In 1580 he was appointed secretary to Lord Gray, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In one capacity or another, in the service of the crown, Spenser passed in Ireland almost the entire remaining eighteen years of his life. In 1591 he received in the south of Ireland a grant of three thousand acres, a part of the confiscated estate of an Irish earl. Sir Walter Raleigh was also given forty-two thousand acres near Spenser. Ireland was then in a state of continuous turmoil. In such a country Spenser lived and wrote his Faerie Queene. Of course, this environment powerfully affected the character of that poem. It has been said that to read a contemporary's account of "Raleigh's adventures with the Irish chieftains, his challenges and single combats, his escapes at fords and woods, is like reading bits of the Faerie Queene in prose."
In 1598 the Irish, infuriated by the invasion of their country and the seizure of their lands, set fire to Spenser's castle. He and his family barely escaped with their lives. He crossed to England and died the next year, according to some accounts, in want. He was buried, at the expense of Lord Essex, in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer.
The Faerie Queene.—In 1590 Spenser published the first three books of the Faerie Queene. The original plan was to have the poem contain twelve books, like Vergil's AEneid, but only six were published. If more were written, they have been lost.
The poem is an allegory with the avowed moral purpose of fashioning "a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline." Spenser says: "I labour to pourtraict in Arthure, before he was King, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised." Twelve Knights personifying twelve Virtues were to fight with their opposing Vices, and the twelve books were to tell the story of the conflict. The Knights set out from the court of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, in search of their enemies, and meet with divers adventures and enchantments.
The hero of the tale is Arthur, who has figured so much in English song and legend. Spenser makes him typical of all the Virtues taken together. The first book, which is really a complete poem by itself, and which is generally admitted to be the finest, contains an account of the adventures of the Red Cross Knight who represents Holiness. Other books tell of the warfare of the Knights who typify Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy.
The poem begins thus:—
"A gentle Knight was pricking[6] on the plaine, Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine, The cruell markes of many' a bloody fielde; Yet armes till that time did he never wield. * * * * * "And on his brest a bloodie Crosse he bore, The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore. * * * * * "Upon a great adventure he was bond. That greatest Gloriana to him gave, That greatest glorious Queene of Faerie lond."
The entire poem really typifies the aspirations of the human soul for something nobler and better than can be gained without effort. In Spenser's imaginative mind, these aspirations became real persons who set out to win laurels in a fairyland, lighted with the soft light of the moon, and presided over by the good genius that loves to uplift struggling and weary souls.
The allegory certainly becomes confused. A critic well says: "We can hardly lose our way in it, for there is no way to lose." We are not called on to understand the intricacies of the allegory, but to read between the lines, catch the noble moral lesson, and drink to our fill at the fountain of beauty and melody.
Spenser a Subjective Poet.—The subjective cast of Spenser's mind next demands attention. We feel that his is an ideal world, one that does not exist outside of the imagination. In order to understand the difference between subjective and objective, let us compare Chaucer with Spenser. No one can really be said to study literature without constantly bringing in the principle of comparison. We must notice the likeness and the difference between literary productions, or the faint impression which they make upon our minds will soon pass away.
Chaucer is objective; that is, he identifies himself with things that could have a real existence in the outside world. We find ourselves looking at the shiny bald head of Chaucer's Monk, at the lean horse and threadbare clothes of the Student of Oxford, at the brown complexion of the Shipman, at the enormous hat and large figure of the Wife of Bath, at the red face of the Summoner, at the hair of the Pardoner "yelow as wex." These are not mere figments of the imagination. We feel that they are either realities or that they could have existed.
While the adventures in the Irish wars undoubtedly gave the original suggestions for many of the contests between good and evil in the Faerie Queene, Spenser intentionally idealized these knightly struggles to uphold the right and placed them in fairyland. This great poem is the work of a mind that loved to elaborate purely subjective images. The pictures were not painted from gazing at the outside world. We feel that they are mostly creations of the imagination, and that few of them could exist in a real world. There is no bower in the bottom of the sea, "built of hollow billowes heaped hye," and no lion ever follows a lost maiden to protect her. We feel that the principal part of Shakespeare's world could have existed in reality as well as in imagination. Spenser was never able to reach this highest type of art.
The world, however, needs poets to create images of a higher type of beauty than this life can offer. These images react on our material lives and cast them in a nobler mold. Spenser's belief that the subjective has power to fashion the objective is expressed in two of the finest lines that he ever wrote:—
"For of the soule the bodie forme doth take; For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make."[7]
Chief Characteristics of Spenser's Poetry.—We can say of Spencer's verse that it stands in the front rank for (1) melody, (2) love of the beautiful, and (3) nobility of the ideals presented. His poetry also (4) shows a preference for the subjective world, (5) exerts a remarkable influence over other poets, and (6) displays a peculiar liking for obsolete forms of expression.
Spencer's melody is noteworthy. If we read aloud correctly such lines as these, we can scarcely fail to be impressed with their harmonious flow:—
"A teme of Dolphins raunged in aray Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoent: They were all taught by Triton to obay To the long raynes at her commaundement: As swifte as swallowes on the waves they went. * * * * * "Upon great Neptune's necke they softly swim, And to her watry chamber swiftly carry him. Deepe in the bottome of the sea her bowre Is built of hollow billowes heaped hye."[8]
The following lines will show Spenser's love for beauty, and at the same time indicate the nobility of some of his ideal characters. He is describing Lady Una, the fair representative of true religion, who has lost through enchantment her Guardian Knight, and who is wandering disconsolate in the forest:—
"…Her angel's face, As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place; Did never mortall eye behold such heavenly grace.
"It fortuned out of the thickest wood A ramping Lyon rushed suddeinly, Hunting full greedy after salvage blood. Soone as the royall virgin he did spy, With gaping mouth at her ran greedily, To have att once devoured her tender corse; But to the pray when as he drew more ny, His bloody rage aswaged with remorse, And with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse.
"In stead thereof he kist her wearie feet, And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong, As he her wronged innocence did weet. O, how can beautie maister the most strong, And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!"[9]
The power of beauty has seldom been more vividly described. As we read the succeeding stanzas and see the lion following her, like a faithful dog, to shield her from harm, we feel the power of both beauty and goodness and realize that with Spenser these terms are interchangeable, Each one of the preceding selections shows his preference for the subjective and the ideal to the actual.
Spenser searched for old and obsolete words. He used "eyne" for "eyes," "fone" for "foes," "shend" for "shame." He did not hesitate to coin words when he needed them, like "mercify" and "fortunize." He even wrote "wawes" in place of "waves" because he wished it to rime with "jaws." In spite of these peculiarities, Spenser is not hard reading after the first appearance of strangeness has worn away.
A critic rightly says that Spenser repels none but the anti-poetical. His influence upon other poets has been far-reaching. Milton, Dryden, Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley show traces of his influence. Spenser has been called the poet's poet, because the more poetical one is, the more one will enjoy him.