The Shorter Poems by Edmund Spenser, Paperback, 9780140434453 | Buy online at The Nile
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The Shorter Poems

Author: Edmund Spenser   Series: Penguin Classics

1999 marks the 400th anniversary of Spenser's death

While The Faerie Queene is his masterpiece, Edmund Spenser showed his supreme versatility and skill as eulogist, satirist, pastoral poet, and prophet in his shorter poetry. This new edition demonstrates the point. Included in this volume are The Shepheardes Calender, twelve poems that mark a turning point in literary history, as the anonymous author confidently asserts his faith in the native vigor of the English language; the Amoretti and Hymnes, which reveal an acute sense of how erotic and even religious love are shot through with vanity and narcissism; Mother Hubberds Tale, an Elizabethan Animal Farm; and the Epithalamion, a rare celebration of consummated desire that is offset by far darker echoes. To assist readers with Spenser's many allusions to biblical, classical, and contemporary literature, Richard A. McCabe provides an insightful Introduction and detailed notes.

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Summary

1999 marks the 400th anniversary of Spenser's death

While The Faerie Queene is his masterpiece, Edmund Spenser showed his supreme versatility and skill as eulogist, satirist, pastoral poet, and prophet in his shorter poetry. This new edition demonstrates the point. Included in this volume are The Shepheardes Calender, twelve poems that mark a turning point in literary history, as the anonymous author confidently asserts his faith in the native vigor of the English language; the Amoretti and Hymnes, which reveal an acute sense of how erotic and even religious love are shot through with vanity and narcissism; Mother Hubberds Tale, an Elizabethan Animal Farm; and the Epithalamion, a rare celebration of consummated desire that is offset by far darker echoes. To assist readers with Spenser's many allusions to biblical, classical, and contemporary literature, Richard A. McCabe provides an insightful Introduction and detailed notes.

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Description

Although he is most famous for The Faerie Queene, this volume demonstrates that for these poems alone Spenser should still be ranked as one of England's foremost poets. Spenser's shorter poems reveal his generic and stylistic versatility, his remarkable linguistic skill and his mastery of complex metrical forms. The range of this volume allows him to emerge fully in the varied and conflicting personae he adopted, as satirist and eulogist, elegist and lover, polemicist and prophet. The volume includes The Shepeardes Calendar, Complaints, and A Theatre for Wordlings.

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About the Author

Edmund Spenser (c.1552-1599) was educated in London and Cambridge and in 1580 moved to Ireland as secretary to the Lord Deputy. His poem, The Faerie Queene, was the first English epic. Richard McCabe is a Fellow in English at Merton College Oxford and a lecturer at the University of Oxford. He has published widely on Renaissance Literature. Edited by Richard A. McCabe

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Product Details

Publisher
Penguin Books | Penguin Classics
Published
31st May 2000
Pages
816
ISBN
9780140434453

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