Spenser

"_Uncouth_ [= unknown], _unkist_," are the words from Chaucer,[118:1] with which the friend, who introduced Spenser's earliest poetry to the world, bespeaks forbearance, and pro...

The _Faery Queen_ is heard of very early in Spenser's literary course. We know that in the beginning of 1580, the year in which Spenser went to Ireland, something under that tit...

In the first week of October, 1579, Spenser was at Leicester House, expecting "next week" to be despatched on Leicester's service to France. Whether he was sent or not, we do no...

It is clear that when Spenser appeared in London, he had found out his powers and vocation as a poet. He came from Cambridge, fully conscious of the powerful attraction of the i...

The publication of the _Faery Queen_ in 1590 had made the new poet of the _Shepherd's Calendar_ a famous man. He was no longer merely the favourite of a knot of enthusiastic fri...

Spenser marks a beginning in English literature. He is the first Englishman who, in that great division of our history which dates from the Reformation, attempted and achieved a...

and purposes, and on the direction of his efforts. He was a classical scholar of much distinction in his day, well read in the Italian authors then so fashionable, and regarded...