Notes on Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene

Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1590/1596)

Context: Author, Œuvre, Moment

Very little is known about Spenser's early life and family. His father may have been named John Spenser, possibly a clothmaker who moved to London from Lancashire. His mother's name was Elizabeth. Spenser may have been distantly related to the Spencers of Althorp, ancestors of Winston Churchill and Princess Diana.

Born in London around 1552 or 1554, Spenser attended the Merchant Taylors’ School, where he studied under Richard Mulcaster alongside Thomas Kyd. Mulcaster's humanist education focused on classical languages but also emphasized writing in English. Spenser likely spoke French and Italian, as well as Latin and Greek.

In 1569, Spenser matriculated at Pembroke Hall (later Pembroke College), Cambridge, earning a BA in 1573 and an MA in 1576. He worked as a sizar to pay for tuition, indicating his family's modest means. At Cambridge, he befriended scholar Gabriel Harvey, with whom he exchanged letters that were later published in 1580.

Spenser entered public service in the late 1570s, working as a secretary for the bishop of Rochester and later for the Earl of Leicester. He knew Philip Sidney during this time. In 1579, he married Machabyas Chylde, with whom he had two children, Sylvanus and Katherine. She likely died between 1590 and 1593.

In 1580, Spenser became a secretary to Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, the Lord Deputy of Ireland. He lived in Ireland for many years, working in local government and as Queen’s Justice for County Cork. He gained land through the redistribution of confiscated Irish land to English settlers; however, he also became involved in a lawsuit with Lord Roche. In 1594, he married Elizabeth Boyle and had a son named Peregrine.

During the Tyrone rebellion in 1598, Spenser's house was burned down. He and his family fled to Cork and then London, where he died on January 13, 1599. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and a memorial was erected in 1620.

Spenser took his poetic career seriously, viewing writing as a duty rather than a hobby. He translated French poems, which were published anonymously in A Theatre for Worldlings (1569) and later included in his Complaints (1591). He also wrote a treatise on “The Englishe poete,” now lost. Some of his early poems were revised and included in The Faerie Queene.

His first major work was The Shepheardes Calender (1579), dedicated to Sidney, which combines the almanac form with the classical eclogue. He uses the persona of ‘Colin Clout’, and alludes to Chaucer and Langland. The text is surrounded by glosses, ostensibly by “E. K.”

Spenser likely began The Faerie Queene by 1579. By 1589, he traveled to London with Raleigh to publish the first three books. It was published in quarto format in January 1590, with a letter to Raleigh added. The work is dedicated to Elizabeth I and includes commendatory poems and dedicatory sonnets. The letter to Raleigh is placed at the back of the book, creating a relationship between the dedication to the queen and the poem’s opening.

In Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595), Spenser mentions reading to the queen, and she granted him a life pension of £50 a year in 1591. The second quarto of 1596 prints the first six books but omits the commendatory verses and dedicatory sonnets. The poem was intended to have twelve books, but Spenser only published the first half. A fragment of book VII, the “Mutability Cantos,” was added to the posthumous 1609 folio. It is uncertain whether Spenser completed the second half or if it was lost or destroyed.

The 1590s were Spenser’s most productive decade, with publications including Complaints (1591), Daphnaïda (1592), Amoretti and Epithalamion (1595), Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595), Fowre Hymnes (1596), Prothalamion (1596), and the fifth edition of The Shepheardes Calender (1597). His collected works were printed in 1611 and 1620.

A vewe of the present state of Irelande, likely by Spenser, was printed in Dublin in 1633, after circulating in manuscript. It defends the suppression of Irish rebels and offers context to the Irish background of The Faerie Queene. The text defends the brutal actions of Lord Grey.

Spenser’s appointment to Ireland may have been a punishment, as he had offended William Cecil, Lord Burghley, with his satirical poem Mother Hubberds Tale. No manuscript of this poem survives, and a printing was confiscated in 1591. Spenser may have offended Burghley again with the ending of book III of The Faerie Queene, which was considered too explicit. In the 1596 edition, Spenser offended King James VI of Scotland with a depiction of Mary Queen of Scots as “false Duessa”.

The Faerie Queene is a transgressive work that emerged from the Elizabethan era.

Basic Coordinates: Central Topics and Concerns

Allegory

Spenser's The Faerie Queene, as explained in the letter to Raleigh, is an allegory intended