The Faerie Queene — Volume 01

by Edmund Spenser

CHAPTER III.

1590.

Thus after an absence of about nine years, Spenser returned for a time to England; he returned 'bringing his sheaves with him.' Whatever shadow of misunderstanding had previously come between his introducer—or perhaps re-introducer—and her Majesty seems to have been speedily dissipated. Raleigh presented him to the Queen, who, it would appear, quickly recognised his merits. 'That goddess'

To mine oaten pipe enclin'd her eare
That she thenceforth therein gan take delight,
And it desir'd at timely houres to heare
Al were my notes but rude and roughly dight.

In the Registers of the Stationers' Company for 1589 occurs to following entry, quoted here from Mr. Arber's invaluable edition of them:—

Primo Die Decembris.—Master Ponsonbye. Entered for his Copye a book intituled the fayre Queene, dyposed into xii bookes &c. Aucthorysed vnder thandes of the Archb. of Canterbery & bothe the Wardens, vjd.

The letter of the author's prefixed to his poem 'expounding his whole intention in the course of this worke, which for that it giveth great light to the reader, for the better understanding is hereunto annexed,' addressed to 'Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, Lord Wardein of the Stanneryes and her Maiesties lieftenaunt in the county of Cornewayll,' is dated January 23, 1589—that is, 1590, according to the New Style. Shortly afterwards, in 1590, according to both Old and New Styles, was published by William Ponsonby 'THE FAERIE QUEENE, Disposed into twelve books, Fashioning XII Morall vertues.' That day, which we spoke of as beginning to arise in 1579, now fully dawned. The silence of well nigh two centuries was now broken, not again to prevail, by mighty voices. During Spenser's absence in Ireland, William Shakspere had come up from the country to London. The exact date of his advent it seems impossible to ascertain. Probably enough it was 1585; but it may have been a little later. We may, however, be fairly sure that by the time of Spenser's arrival in London in 1589, Shakspere was already occupying a notable position in his profession as an actor; and what is more important, there can be little doubt he was already known not only as an actor, but as a play-writer. What he had already written was not comparable with what he was to write subsequently; but even those early dramas gave promise of splendid fruits to be thereafter yielded. In 1593 appeared Venus and Adonis; in the following year Lucrece; in 1595, Spenser's Epithalamion; in 1596, the second three books of the Faerie Queene; in 1597 Romeo and Juliet, King Richard the Second, and King Richard the Third were printed, and also Bacon's Essays and the first part of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. During all these years various plays, of increasing power and beauty, were proceeding from Shakspere's hands; by 1598 about half of his extant plays had certainly been composed. Early in 1599, he, who may be said to have ushered in this illustrious period, he whose radiance first dispersed the darkness and made the day begin to be, our poet Spenser, died. But the day did not die with him; it was then but approaching its noon, when he, one of its brightest suns, set. This day may be said to have fully broken in the year 1590, when the first instalment of the great work of Spenser's life made its appearance.

The three books were dedicated to the Queen. They were followed in the original edition—are preceded in later editions—first, by the letter to Raleigh above mentioned; then by six poetical pieces of a commendatory sort, written by friends of the poet—by Raleigh who writes two of the pieces, by Harvey who now praises and well-wishes the poem he had discountenanced some years before, by 'R.S.,' by 'H.B.,' by 'W.L.;' lastly, by seventeen sonnets addressed by the poet to various illustrious personages; to Sir Christopher Hatton, to Lord Burghley, to the Earl of Essex, Lord Charles Howard, Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Buckhurst, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir John Norris, Knight, lord president of Munster, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Countess of Pembroke, and others. The excellence of the poem was at once generally perceived and acknowledged. Spenser had already, as we have seen, gained great applause by his Shepheardes Calendar, published some ten years before the coming out of his greater work. During these ten years he had resided out of England, as has been seen; but it is not likely his reputation had been languishing during his absence. Webbe in his Discourse of English Poetrie, 1586, had contended 'that Spenser may well wear the garlande, and step before the best of all English poets.' The Shepheardes Calendar had been reprinted in 1581 and in 1586; probably enough, other works of his had been circulating in manuscript; the hopes of the country had been directed towards him; he was known to be engaged in the composition of a great poem. No doubt he found himself famous when he reached England on the visit suggested by Raleigh; he found a most eager expectant audience; and when at last his Faerie Queene appeared, it was received with the utmost delight and admiration. He was spoken of in the same year with its appearance as the new laureate.{1} In the spring of the following year he received a pension from the crown of 50_l_. per annum. Probably, however, then, as in later days, the most ardent appreciators of of Spenser were the men of the same craft with himself—the men who too, though in a different degree, or in a different kind, possessed the 'vision and the faculty divine.'

This great estimation of the Faerie Queene was due not only to the intrinsic charms of the poem—to its exquisitely sweet melody, its intense pervading sense of beauty, its abundant fancifulness, its subtle spirituality—but also to the time of its appearance. For then nearly two centuries no great poem had been written in the English tongue. Chaucer had died heirless. Occleve's lament over that great spirit's decease had not been made without occasion:—

Alas my worthie maister honorable
This londis verray tresour and richesse
Deth by thy dethe hathe harm irreperable
Unto us done; hir vengeable duresse
Dispoiled hathe this londe of swetnesse
Of Rethoryk fro us; to Tullius
Was never man so like amonges us.{2}

And the doleful confession this orphaned rhymer makes for himself, might have been well made by all the men of his age in England:—

My dere mayster, God his soule quite,
And fader Chaucer fayne would have me taught,
But I was dull, and learned lyte or naught.

No worthy scholar had succeeded the great master. The fifteenth century in England had abounded in movements of profound social and political interest—in movements which eventually fertilised and enriched and ripened the mind of the nation; but, not unnaturally, the immediate literary results had been of no great value. In the reign of Henry VIII, the condition of literature, for various reasons, had greatly improved. Surrey and Wyatt had heralded the advent of a brighter era. From their time the poetical succession had never failed altogether. The most memorable name in our literature between their time and the Faerie Queene is that of Sackville, Lord Buckhurst—a name of note in the history of both our dramatic and non-dramatic poetry. Sackville was capable of something more than lyrical essays. He it was who designed the Mirror for Magistrates. To that poem, important as compared with the poetry of its day, for its more pretentious conception, he himself contributed the two best pieces that form part of it—the Induction and the Complaint of Buckingham. These pieces are marked by some beauties of the same sort as those which especially characterise Spenser; but they are but fragments; and in spirit they belong to an age which happily passed away shortly after the accession of Queen Elizabeth—they are penetrated by that despondent tone which is so strikingly audible in our literature in the middle years of the sixteeth century, not surprisingly, if the general history of the time be considered. Meanwhile, our language had changed much, and Chaucer had grown almost unintelligible to the ordinary reader. Therefore, about the year 1590, the nation was practically without a great poem. At the same time, it then, if ever, truly needed one. Its power of appreciation had been quickened and refined by the study of the poetries of other countries; it had translated and perused the classical writers with enthusiasm; it had ardently pored over the poetical literature of Italy. Then its life had lately been ennobled by deeds of splendid courage crowned with as splendid success. In the year 1590, if ever, this country, in respect of its literary condition and in respect of its general high and noble excitement, was ready for the reception of a great poem.

Such a poem undoubtedly was the Faerie Queene, although it may perhaps be admitted that it was a work likely to win favour with the refined and cultured sections of the community rather than with the community at large. Strongly impressed on it as were the instant influences of the day, yet in many ways it was marked by a certain archaic character. It depicted a world—the world of chivalry and romance—which was departed; it drew its images, its forms of life, its scenery, its very language, from the past. Then the genius of our literature in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign was emphatically dramatic; in the intense life of these years men longed for reality. Now the Faerie Queene is one long idealizing. These circumstances are to accounted for partly by the character of Spenser's genius, partly by the fact already stated that chronologically Spenser is the earliest of the great spirits of his day. In truth he stands between two worlds: he belongs partly to the new time, partly to the old; he is the last of one age, he is the first of another; he stretches out one hand into the past to Chaucer, the other rests upon the shoulder of Milton.

Footnotes
————-

{1} Nash's Supplication of Pierce Pennilesse, 1592. {2} Skeat's Specimens of English Literature, p. 14.