Spensers The Faerie Queene

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by Edmund Spenser, et al, Edited by George Armstrong Wauchope
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Title: Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I
Author: Edmund Spenser
Release Date: March 7, 2005 [eBook #15272]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SPENSER'S THE FAERIE QUEENE, BOOK I***
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SPENSER'S
THE FAERIE QUEENE

BOOK I
EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
GEORGE ARMSTRONG WAUCHOPE, M.A., Ph.D.
Professor of English in the South Carolina College
Velut inter ignes luna minores
New York
The Macmillan Company
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1921

Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1903.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION:
I. The Age which produced the Faerie Queene
II. The Author of the
Faerie Queene
III. Study of the Faerie Queene:
0. A Romantic Epic
0. Influence of the New Learning
0. Interpretation of the Allegory
0. The Spenserian Stanza
0. Versification
0. Diction and Style IV. Chronological Table of Events
THE FAERIE QUEENE. BOOK I:
Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh
Sonnet to Sir Walter Raleigh

Dedication to Queen Elizabeth
Canto I
Canto II
Canto III
Canto
IV
Canto V
Canto VI
Canto VII
Canto VIII
Canto IX
Canto
X
Canto XI
Canto XII
NOTES
GLOSSARY

INTRODUCTION
I. THE AGE WHICH PRODUCED THE FAERIE QUEENE
The study of the Faerie Queene should be preceded by a review of the
great age in which it was written. An intimate relation exists between
the history of the English nation and the works of English authors. This
close connection between purely external events and literary
masterpieces is especially marked in a study of the Elizabethan Age. To
understand the marvelous outburst of song, the incomparable drama,

and the stately prose of this period, one must enter deeply into the
political, social, and religious life of the times.
The Faerie Queene was the product of certain definite conditions
which existed in England toward the close of the sixteenth century. The
first of these national conditions was the movement known as the
_revival of chivalry_; the second was the spirit of nationality fostered
by the English Reformation; and the third was that phase of the English
Renaissance commonly called the revival of learning.
The closing decade of Queen Elizabeth's reign was marked by a strong
reaction toward romanticism. The feudal system with its many
imperfections had become a memory, and had been idealized by the
people. The nation felt pride in its new aristocracy, sprung largely from
the middle class, and based rather on worth than ancestry. The
bitterness of the Wars of the Roses was forgotten, and was succeeded
by an era of reconciliation and good feeling. England was united in a
heroic queen whom all sects, ranks, and parties idolized. The whole
country exulting in its new sense of freedom and power became a
fairyland of youth, springtime, and romantic achievement.
Wise and gallant courtiers, like Sidney, Leicester, and Raleigh,
gathered about the queen, and formed a new chivalry devoted to deeds
of adventure and exploits of mind in her honor. The spirit of the old
sea-kings lived again in Drake and his bold buccaneers, who swept the
proud Spaniards from the seas. With the defeat of the Invincible
Armada, the greatest naval expedition of modern times, the fear of
Spanish and Catholic domination rolled away. The whole land was
saturated with an unexpressed poetry, and the imagination of young
and old was so fired with patriotism and noble endeavor that nothing
seemed impossible. Add to this intense delight in life, with all its
mystery, beauty, and power, the keen zest for learning which filled the
air that men breathed, and it is easy to understand that the time was ripe
for a new and brilliant epoch in literature. First among the