Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is widely recognized as one of the greatest epic poems of the Elizabethan age. It may be also commonly assumed that Spenser’s poetry represents an archetypal convention of gender in the era. Though Spenser plays off the feminine conventions linking the figure of power, Queen Elizabeth with specific characters, for example, Una in Book I, traditional patterns of feminine stereotypes are still continually penetrated in Renaissance and Spenser’s portrayal of feminity to religious discourse which reflects, an undertone of fear of women (Norbrook, 120-123) or, an anxiety about female sexuality. This paper is a feminist reading on how the portrayal of Una, as an idealized woman embodied with chastity and beauty reflects a male anxiety about female sexuality and discourse reinforcing female as a subordinated role in Renaissance society. Una, embodies a women ideal cohabiting innocence and chastity. During the Renaissance period, according to, “femine honor was constant, linked to sexuality and the necessity, for all classes of women, to maintain their chastity”.…

These were the words of Edmund Spenser. This comes from the third book of “The Faerie Queene” written by Edmund Spenser. He was a very famous poet. In fact, he was one of the greatest poets of England. He wrote his book “The Faerie Queene” in Ireland. He took over a 3,000 acre plantation in Ireland too. He had two wives and a daughter and son. His children’s names were unknown. There are many facts and information about Edmund Spenser. To begin, Edmund Spenser was born in 1552. Many websites…

Characters such as Viola and Olivia from William Shakespeare’s comedy, Twelfth Night, and Britomart from Edmund Spenser’s epic, The Faire Queene, are used to critique society’s conception of the masculine and feminine that expects women to be subordinate. These characters are confronted with various opportunities to assert themselves; however they must first overcome obstacles created by the general taboo against women asserting themselves. They highlight the double standards apparent in the…

Previously, stories were all about chivalry, knights, battles, hero’s, and very little about love. That all changed when the Renaissance came around. During the Renaissance, authors began writing about love, and the women that they loved. Having their stories written on pages, their stories could live forever, and not be lost in time. Short sonnets were written describing the change and the love that they were witnessing taking place. Writers during this time felt that if they wrote these…

considered the knight of holiness. One thing Edmund Spenser didn’t paint in black and white was the specific physical appearance of Redcrosse. This leaves it up to the reader to create their own image which helps connect with the character. The story of Redcrosse, like Gawain, is meant to draw the reader to see his moral qualities more than his physical attributes. He was given a task by Queen Gloriana to go with Una and a dwarf to fight Error which he accepted because he wanted to prove his…

William Butler Yeats use of pastoral poetry in his poems Lake Isle of Innisfree and Easter 1916 his use of this type descriptive language evokes the reader to imagine a rural Irish life rich in folklore and fairytales. Yeats’ also urges his reader to envision life in the picturesque world, he used this style of writing to bring about a feeling of nationalism but with the preservation of Irish history. In the poem Lake Isle of Innisfree, Yeats uses pastoral imagery to describe the Western…

Tragic love stories have fascinated humans since ancient times. They conquered the hearts of many and opened the ways for more love stories. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – to October 1400) is one of the most famous English authors of the middle ages. Chaucer is considered the father of English literature and thrilled the mass with his literary works. His most famous works include the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. Yet, again a tragic love story that is still widely popular in the 21st…

This essay will be a critical assessment of The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. It is a direct response to the text itself and will examine the concerns, idioms as well as styles of early modern writing. The poem is the first epic poem in English, written around sixty years before Paradise Lost. Evidently, the epic is a focus on the theological virtues of Christian faith, yet Spenser could not resist including classical mythology and legends in the books. Moreover, the poem is said to be a…

Permanance: An Analytical Exploration of Epigrams 4-6 in Spenser’s Translations of Theatre for Worldlings Reading literature by Edmund Spenser requires a keen eye and a willingness to investigate beyond the text. You are not simply able to read Spenser and somehow acquire what each line means as a first-time reader of his works. Reading Spenser peaks ones’ interest to explore common themes, similarities, imagery, and the allusions which bring forward the meaning behind the text. By closely…

Although Wordsworth and Dunbar appear to call on their deceased elders, Milton and Douglass respectively, to solve their different woes with society, they instead seek refuge in a plea for living person to solve their modern problems using old wisdom. The speakers in both poems differ in regards to the reason behind their motivation to call their late role models. In the poem “London, 1802,” William Wordsworth agonizes over the idea that morals and creativity in England have deteriorated.…