Who does not know William Shakespeare! He is called the king of English literature, but meanwhile, few people know that he had a senior comrade, a teacher in some way, who also did a lot for British literature, in particular poetry. We are talking about Edmund Spencer, and it is his biography and work that this material is dedicated to.
Initial information
If Edmund Spencer, a poet of the Elizabethan era, was Shakespeare's senior contemporary, you can imagine how long he lived!
In this case, there is absolutely nothing surprising in the fact that the exact date of birth of the "poet of poets" - and this is exactly what was called during the lifetime of this talented author - is not known for certain. There are suggestions that this happy event happened either in 1552 or in 1553. The future writer was born in London, in a poor family, descending, however, from an ancient clan (this clan took the very beginning in the small town of Burnley, in the county of Lancashire). There is no exact information about who the father of Edmund Spencer was by profession. He probably served as a hired apprentice in the Tailors Guild. His name was John, his mother's name was Elizabeth. It is known that Edmund had at least one sister and at least several brothers.
School years
In 1561, the same Tailors Guild, in which, apparently, the father of the future great poet worked, founded her own school - though only for merchant children. Eight- or nine-year-old Spencer Jr., however, was enrolled in her - was it because his father asked for it? - And, along with other classmates, he began to gnaw at the granite of science. What was taught to then schoolchildren in the Tailors Guild? Yes, everything, however, as elsewhere: languages (mandatory Greek and Latin, Hebrew was a plus - it was very unusual), spelling, ancient literature. The director of the school was Richard Malkaster, a well-known teacher and humanist, which is probably why the boys took up the training seriously.
At school, Edmund Spencer stayed until the age of sixteen to seventeen: he graduated from it in 1569, and the time spent there became happy for him, as it marked the beginning of his creative activity. It was at school that Spencer began to write the first poems, and some of his pen samples were even published in the book of Jan van der Noodt, which placed them under the same cover with his own anti-Catholic treatise.
University years
In the same year 1569 another significant event took place for Spencer: he was enrolled in the Pembroke Hall of the University of Cambridge. On the contrary, his surnames were marked sizar - this meant that he was limited in means and in exchange for housing and food would carry out various chores.
In Cambridge, the future star of English poetry continued to write, and also met many people who subsequently had a great influence on him (including, perhaps, in the first place among them - Cambridge rhetoric teacher Gabriel Harvey, who plotted the course of Spencer's ship, helping him maneuver in the ocean of world literature). It was Edmund who studied literature mainly, though more English than any other.
The logical conclusion of his stay at the university, with which he finally parted in 1577, was the receipt by the future genius of English poetry, first a bachelor's degree (in 1573), and then a master's degree (three years later).
Further way
After graduating from university, our hero worked for a year in Kent as Secretary of the Rochester Bishop, but then returned. Even before he left, Edmund met Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley, favorite of Queen Elizabeth, an active statesman and far from the last person at court. After his return from Kent, Spencer entered his service.
Robert Dudley added to the number of people who influenced Spencer and expressed constant help and support to him. And it was Dudley who indirectly contributed to Spencer's acquaintance with Philip Sidney - another English poet, creator of the Areopagus literary society, where Spencer was subsequently admitted and whose goal was the transformation of literature. A connoisseur of the latter, interested not only in its practice, but also in theory, Spencer was not averse to introducing something new into poetry.
In the service of Dudley, Spencer stayed for as much as a year, after which he, through his own efforts, was transferred by the secretary to Lord Gray in Ireland, where the war was just at that time. The result of what was seen and rethought in the country of leprechauns (including mainly of a political nature) was the poet’s only prosaic work - “A Look at the Current Situation of Ireland”. The work was printed many years later - only in 1633.
In Ireland, Spencer lived a little over sixteen years (with one-year breaks several times to leave for England). There, for the first time in his life, he became a landowner - in 1582 he rented land and a house in the county of Kildare. His goal was to become a major owner and enter the circle of local nobility, which gradually he, in general, succeeded. During the time spent in Ireland, he changed positions and places of service several times, got a lot of useful connections and acquaintances. For example, it was in Ireland that he met Walter Raleigh, another Elizabethan favorite, poet and writer, who contributed in many ways to seeing the light of Spencer's main work, The Fairy Queen (we will return to it later).
At the end of the sixteenth century, an uprising began in Ireland, the estates were on fire, the feudal lords left their homes. Spencer’s family didn’t pass this either - his estate was burned, his goods were looted. Shortly after this business accident, Spencer left for London, where he suddenly died in January 1599. He was only 46-47 years old.
Personal life
Edmund Spencer was married twice. For the first time he was married in 1579, from this marriage he had a daughter and a son. The first wife died early, and in 1594 the poet married a second time. The second wife gave him a son.
During his stay at the court, the married Edmund already had short love affairs with women. It is not known for certain whether Spencer also had relationships with men - some researchers argue that their relationship with Gabriel Harvey was not only friendly.
The work of Edmund Spencer
Having illuminated the details of the life of the English poet, we can now rightfully proceed to talk about his work. And although it will not be possible to talk about each of his work in detail, we still point out the most significant ones.
"Shepherd's calendar"
This work was the first voluminous work written by Spencer and saw the light of day. Throughout his life, Spencer worked in different genres, made a significant contribution to different genres and left his mark, however, like many, he began with the pastoral (a work that describes the idyllic life of shepherds and shepherdesses in the lap of nature). Just the same, the "Shepherd’s calendar" refers to the pastoral. Why a calendar? Because the poem contains twelve eclogues (an eclogue is a poem about a shepherd’s life, usually a love poem), the name of each of which coincides with the name of a month in a year.
Many characters of the Shepherd’s Calendar had their prototypes in real life. That's himself Edmund Spencer brought out there as Colin Klaut. “Shepherd’s calendar” caused a great resonance, had some success, and its author, as they say, woke up famous. The poem, which is now called the most important milestone in the development of British poetry, brought Spencer a good income, they began to greet him at the court, where he often visited in the company of Robert Dudley.
Fairy Queen
Conceived long before that, the epic poem, "Spencer's whole life affair", "Fairy Queen" was released only in 1590. Rather, only the first three books of six were published then - it consists of so many works (it also includes one fragment, known as the “Song of Variability”). However, their output was more than enough to immediately and unanimously recognize the British first among the living poets.
According to Spencer himself, the general idea and meaning of creating this poetic opus was the idea to persuade any noble person - including Queen Elizabeth - to decent behavior, morality and virtue. When it was created, Edmund was inspired by such authors as Homer, Virgil and others.
The Fairy Queen consists of six parts. In each of them the story of the life of a knight is described, some legend is told. In each book, one or another knight, personifying one or another virtue, must fight with some vice. By the way, one of these knights is King Arthur. As in The Shepherd’s Calendar, the heroes of this epic drama have life prototypes. So, the ruler of the fairies is the omnipotent of Britain herself.
Collection of "Complaints"
This almanac, published in 1591, includes diverse works. This is the cycle of Edmund Spencer's sonnets, and translations, and nine poems - "The Ruins of Rome", for example, or "Tears of the Muses" - and even a fable. All these motley things are interconnected by themes - they are all about the transience of being and all earthly and existing.
Contribution to English Literature
What did Edmund Spencer do for British poetry, which gave him the right to be called the Poet of Poets? Quite a lot of things. For instance:
- He brought musicality to the English verse, in which it had not previously been observed.
- He showed the possibility of a metric variety of poems.
- Demonstrated the ability to preserve the sonority, plasticity and flexibility of the verse in any work.
- Saturated poetry with images and alliterations.
- Combined the British language with its modern syntax, which allowed to improve the quality of the resulting poem.
- Invented the stanza with nine lines (of which all but the last are five-foot iambic, the last six-foot).
- He came up with an updated form of the classic sonnet ("chain quatrains").
This is the biography of Edmund Spencer, poet of poets, in a sense, the creator of English literature.