Edmund Spenser
(1552 1599)
Short Biography
Although little is known about Edmund Spenser we can say that he was born to a modest family in London in or around the year 1552. His English versions of poems by the French poet Joachim du Beilay and also his translation of a French poem by Petrarch appeared at the beginning of an anti Catholic prose tract in 1569. He was a student at Pembroke Hall (Pembroke College) also being classed as sizer. He later went on to receive his Bachelor of the Arts degree then moving on to get his Masters in 1579. His Knowledge for traditional forms, themes of lyrical and narrative poetry made his able to build his own highly original compositions. The Meaning behind Spensers poems are frequently out of the traditional interpretations developed through his personal experiences and his faith of Christianity, further enriched by medieval and contemporary, legend and folklore. Spenser was beginning his careers with eclogues. In 1579 he becomes married to Machabyas Chyle who he has two children with. Later, in 1580 he becomes a member of the Literary Circle led by Sir Philip Sidney. To express himself he later invented the nine-line stanza. Early 1595 he published Amoretti and Epithalamion, a sonnet and a marriage ode celebrating his
second marriage to Elizabeth Boyle. As the focus of “Sonnet 30”, Spenser reveals the emotion of sexual desire and shows the idea that love defies logic. In “Sonnet 75”, addressed to his wife he places himself in the center of the poems telling us about his personal situation. Such poetry is known as lyric, which become popular in Spensers time.