Edmund Spencer (Spenser Edmund)

(ca. 1552-1599)
Along with U. Shakespeare and J. Milton is recognized as one of the greatest English poets. Born in London (he says in the poem Protalamion - Prothalamion), the exact date of birth unknown. Visited Merchant-Teylorz-School (privileged high school) in London in 1569 went to Pembroke College in Cambridge, where in 1573 received a bachelor's degree, and in 1576 - Masters.
We do not know what did Spencer, left Cambridge. On the basis of one argument in his book Looking at the present state of Ireland (A view of the present state of Ireland) can be assumed that he visited this country in 1577. When in 1578 John Young (former head of Pembroke College) became the Bishop of Rochester, he took Spencer to his secretary. The following year Spencer some time served in the count's house in Leicester. By the end of 1579, he published, without specifying the name, Calendar shepherd (Shepheardes Calender). Since the book contained criticism of church policy of the Government of Elizabeth, the anonymity of the publication was probably justified precaution. If Spencer had hoped that the mediation Earl of Leicester to help him get a place at the royal court, he was deceived in their expectations: the summer of 1580 he went to Ireland as secretary to Lord Gray, the governor-general in Ireland. This appointment opened the way to Spencer for a successful career in the Irish government administration.

By this time Spencer was married - in 1579 he married with Makabe Child. After working for two years at Lord Gray, who started an independent career and served first in Dublin and later in the south of Ireland. The most profitable - and troubled - was the position of Deputy Secretary of the Council for the province of Munster. In 1587 the British landlords began to colonize Munster and began gathering up their hands on large estates confiscated from the Irish rebels. As Spencer at that time was in Munster, he managed to get an estate near Cork, an area of 1200 hectares. Now he himself entered the circle of large landowners and gradually freed from their duties. All this time he wrote a little Fairy Queen (Faerie Queene). By the summer of 1589, obviously, has been largely completed that part of the poem, which now makes her first three books: Y. Raleigh saw the manuscript when he visited the poet at his Irish estate. Autumn Raleigh returned to London, along with Spencer.

Thanks to Raleigh, he was presented to the Queen, dedicated to her Fairy Queen, and was rewarded with an annual pension of 50 pounds. He remained in London for almost 18 months and during that time, sent to publishers the first three books of The Fairy Queen (1590) and two smaller volume of work - an elegy Dafnaida (Daphnaida, 1590) and a collection of poems in different genres Complaints (Complaints, 1591). Spencer returned to Ireland, having managed to acquire a solid reputation as a major poet. In order to celebrate its triumphant return and to express appreciation to Raleigh, he began to compose a poem (completed only in 1595) entitled The Return of CLOUT, Colin (Colin Clout's Come Home Again).

Spencer's first wife died in late 1590. Around 1592 he began to care for Elizabeth Boyle, and in 1594 married her. About his future life, we know very little. During his second trip to London (1596) he published the continuation of the Queen of the fairies, and two poems - Protalamion and Four anthem (Four Hymns). In 1598, the height of the rebellion of Tyrone, Spencer was forced to leave his estate to seek refuge in Cork. From there he was sent to London with a message for the British Government. Spencer died in London on January 13, 1599

. The plot material masterpiece Spencer, . Fairy Queen, . one of the longest poems in English, . largely dates back to the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, . cheerful and witty books of chivalry, but unlike him, Fairy Queen enters into a serious moral allegory and based on a thorough analysis of human behavior,
. Each of the six completed books of the poem is his hero, personifying, respectively, piety, modesty, chastity, friendship, fairness, courtesy. Thus, the poem as a whole glorifies active life in the name of virtue. But Spencer took not only the eternal truths, but modern life. At the main character, fairies Gloriana, was a prototype - Queen Elizabeth. Belfeba, virgin-huntress, embodies chastity Queen Marsilla - its fairness, Una - care about religion, but Britomartis, the most interesting of the characters of Spencer, was named in a number of mythical ancestors of Elizabeth.

Through the main theme of the Queen of fairies is the struggle between love (with its desire to forever preserve the beauty, joy and goodness) and the destructive forces of time and change. The latest in Spencer connected with the idea of deception, and his story has many characters who enter the characters in a misleading false guise. Again and again, Spencer persistently returns to its credo: it is impossible to live a virtuous life, not trained your mind to distinguish between what merely seems good, from what is established in fact.

For his long poem Spencer invented a special verse, which is now named after him. Initial models for it served as a stanza of Chaucer (used in composed of 5 books of the poem Troilus and Hrizeida) and the stanza of Ariosto (in Orlando Furioso). Spenserian stanza, . slightly longer and contain the effect of Shift rate (by adding an extra foot in the ninth verse), . able to transmit an amazing diversity of stylistic inflections: it is convenient for the leisurely description, . and storytelling with a rapid succession of action, . and the energetic dialogue with short remarks,
.

Another distinctive feature of the poem - its very special language. Underlying this is a good Elizabethan English, but somehow disguised quaint spelling and interspersed words of Chaucer's era, the grammatical forms which the author rather arbitrarily alters.

In his first essay, Calendar, Shepherd (1579), Spencer more often than in the Fairy Queen, resorted to the old vocabulary and grammar. But in this poem, this style seems more appropriate. This pastoral, and when the shepherds were talking among themselves, some 'old-fashioned' their speech, devoid of frills of modern London dialect, it seems quite natural.

During his stay in London in 1589-1591 Spencer has published several short poems under the title The complaints, which include various little poem about a worldly vanity (Complaints, containing sundry small Poems of the World's Vanitie). Most of them, as can be seen on the title, painted in a pessimistic tone. However, the collection is on and my mother's Tale Haberd (Mother Hubberd's Tale) - written in a very lively fashion fable, . which animals are, . but making fun of the lazy and ignorant churchmen, . courtiers intriguing and ambitious statesmen,
. Poem Epitalamion (Epithalamion), which Spencer has written on the day of his wedding, and published together with the cycle of sonnets Amoretta (Amoretti) in 1595, according to all indicators, except the volume can be attributed to a number of his major works. Less significant addition to this majestic ode was Protalamion poem, written on the occasion of an engagement in the house of Lord Essex in 1596. Also in 1596 came the last lifetime edition of the Four hymns Spencer. In them the author celebrates the first earthly love and earthly beauty (in the images of Cupid and Venus), . then - love divine, . yavivshuyusya people in the redemptive act of Christ, . and finally - the beauty of the heavenly hierarchy and Sapienza (female character, . which embodies the beauty of divine wisdom, . in terms of composition 'balances' the image of Venus),
.

The papers of Spencer left one prose work, look at the present state of Ireland, which was published only in 1633. In arguing in favor of full and effective conquest of Ireland by military means and the establishment there of a manner consistent with the ideals of the English social system.