Faery Queene
is very noticeable. One of Spenser's arts is that of alliteration, and he uses it with great effect in doubling the impression of an image:
In wildernesse and wastful deserts,
Through woods and wastnes wilde,
They passe the bitter waves of Acheron,
Where many soules sit wailing woefully,
And come to fiery flood of Phlegeton,
Whereas the damned ghosts in torments fry,
And with sharp shrilling shrieks doth bootlesse cry, &c.
He is particularly given to an alternate alliteration, which is, perhaps, when well used, a great secret in melody:
A ramping lyon rushed suddenly, And sad to see her sorrowful constraint,
And on the grasse her daintie limbes did lay, &c.
You cannot read a page of the
Faery Queene
, if you read for that purpose, without perceiving the intentional alliterativeness of the words; and yet so skilfully is this managed, that it never strikes any unwarned ear as artificial, or other than the result of the necessary movement of the verse.
3.
Spenser displays great skill in harmonizing his descriptions of external nature and actual incidents with the allegorical character and epic activity of the poem. Take these two beautiful passages as illustrations of what I mean: