Edmund Spenser - An Introduction

Welcome to my new video lecture. In this lecture, I will talk about one of the most important poets in British literature. And I request you all that if you all have time, please do watch till the end of this lecture because some of the things about that particular poet I will be sharing in this lecture which can be of great interest. And in my various requests that please do take out some time if you have and please watch till the end of this video. And if possible, please if you like my work, if you like the videos that I share, it's my humble request that please do subscribe to my YouTube channel. So, today I will speak about Edmund Spencer. So, when we talk of Spencer, Spencer occupies a very important position because of the significant work that Spencer has done. Let us start with his childhood. So, before that, there are some important quotations or there are important terms which have been given to Spencer. For example, Charles Lamb calls Spencer as the poet's poet. And at the same time, during the Elizabethan period, the Elizabethans overall recognized him as the prince of poets. Now, when we talk of Edmund Spencer, the timeline of Edmund Spencer is between 1552 to 1599. He was born in East Smithfield in London to John Spencer who was a cloth maker by profession. He was educated at Merchant Taylor School and at Pembroke Hall College, Cambridge. He received his BA degree of education in 1573 followed by his MA degree in 1573. Then on, he became the secretary to John 78. Now, after that, after the time of 1578, you can see Spencer published his first work, his first poetic work which is a very significant work called The Shepherd's Calendar in 1579 at Kent where he worked as a secretary to John Young, Bishop of Rochester. So, in that period, at the place called Kent, he published his first poetic work called The Shepherd's Calendar. Then he dedicated The Shepherd's Calendar to Sir Philip Sidney. He published The Shepherd's Calendar anonymously under the pseudonym of Immersio which means unworthy. This is a very significant information. Shepherd's Calendar was modeled on Theocritus Aegeus and the classical poet Virgil's Ecologues. The Shepherd's Calendar, if you talk about the details of it, the Shepherd's Calendar consists of 12 ecologues, one for each month which was meant to be sung by various shepherds. The Shepherd's Calendar, if you try to analyze the overall, the general theme, it expresses the regret for a lost golden age. Now, then comes the next very important work of Edmund Spencer that is The Fairy Queen. So, the first three books of Fairy Queen was published in 1590. Overall, the six books of the Fairy Queen were published together in 1596. And only six books because initially he planned 12 books but only six books out of his 12 books would be completed. This Fairy Queen poem can be considered to be the first major poem which was written in Spencerian stanza. Now, if you look into the details of the Fairy Queen which consists of the six books, let us just try to find out. Because the titles of the books are very important from various competitive examination point of view. The book 1 is called the Red Cross Knight which is also termed as Holiness. Book 2 is Boyon that is Temperance. Book 3, Britomart, Chastity. Book 4, Trimond and Campbell, Friendship. Book 5, Argyle, Justice. And book 6, Kaledor, Courtesy. This is very important from any competitive examination point of view. So, it is my humble request, please read the titles of these books. Then, Edmund Spencer published a volume of nine poems under the title of Complaints in 1591. He published another work which is an elegy on the death of Lady Howard called Daphnida which was published in 1591. Then came his two other greatest works. One is Amoriti and Epitheliumion both published in the same year that is 1595. When we talk of Amoriti, Amoriti is a sonnet sequence of 89 sonnets followed by 4 lyrics which generally talks about his courtship with Elizabeth Boyle over a period of two years that he had the courtship with. Now, if you talk of Epitheliumion, it consists of 365 lines of 24 stanzas and it has the description of 16 days and 8 nights all together. In 1595, he published one more work called The Fallen Clouds Come Home Again which is an autobiographical factual elegy followed by his four hymns which he published in 1596. And in that same year, he published one more important work that is Protheliumion in 1596. Now, Protheliumion, if you talk about Protheliumion in 1596, the word Protheliumion was invented by Edmund Spenser himself which meant the spousal verse. Protheliumion consists of 10 stanzas which is modelled on Italian Canzoni. He invented a very important form that is the Spenserian stanza which is 8 lines of iambic pentameter followed by an alexandrine that is iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme if you talk about of the Spenserian stanza is A B, A B B, C B, C C. Then another form he also is associated with the Spenserian sonnet which is an interlocked quatrain and the rhyme scheme of the Spenserian sonnet is A B, A B, B C, B C, C D, C D, E E. So, my dear friends, this was just an outline about Edmund Spenser, the poet, the writer, the famous writer. If you like the video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and please thank you very much for sparing your valuable time. And I will get back to such small but very informative videos in my following lectures which will soon follow. This is Dr. Shilpa Banerjee signing off. May God bless you all. Thank you very much for watching the video.