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Faerie Queene: Edmund Spenser
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The fifth Book of The Faerie Queene, the Book of Justice, is Spenser's most direct discussion of political theory. In it, Spenser both attempts to tackle the problem of policy toward Ireland and recreates the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.
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The hero of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is Prince Arthur, who typifies Magnificence. Arthur himself tells that as an infant he was put under the tutelage of an elderly Knight Timon. His education was directed by Merlin, the magician, who would only tell him that his father was a king and that his full identity would be revealed in time. He ... relates that he has fallen in love with Gloriana, the Fairy Queen, who appeared to him in a dream. He set out on his journey to her Court in Fairy-land and has searched for her for nine months, but in vain. And he is still pursuing his quest.
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In 1580 Spenser went over to Ireland as private secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the Artegall of the Legend of Justice in the Faerie Queene. After the recall of his patron he remained in that turbulent island in various civil positions for the rest of his life, with the exception of two or three visits and a last sad flight to England. For seven years he was clerk of the Court of Chancery in Dublin, and then was appointed clerk to the Council of Munster. In 1586 he was granted the forfeited estate of the Earl of Desmond in Cork County, and two years later took up his residence in Kilcolman Castle, which was beautifully situated on a lake with a distant view of mountains. In the disturbed political condition of the country, life here seemed a sort of exile to the poet, but its very loneliness and danger gave the stimulus needed for the development of his peculiar genius.
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The Faerie Queene is a scholarly masterpiece that has influenced, inspired, and challenged generations of writers, readers and scholars since its completion in 1596. Hamilton's edition is itself, a masterpiece of scholarship and close reading. It is nowthe standardedition for allreaders of Spenser. The entire work is revised, and the text of The Faerie Queene itself has been freshly edited, the first such edition since the 1930s.
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A letter written by Spenser to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1589 contains an early plan for The Faerie Queene, in which Spenser describes the allegorical presentation of virtues through Arthurian knights in the mythical "Faerieland." Presented as a preface to the epic in most published editions, this letter outlines plans for 24 books: 12 based each on a different knight who exemplified one of 12 "private virtues", and a possible 12 more centered on King Arthur displaying twelve "public virtues". Spenser names Aristotle as his source for these virtues, although the influence of Thomas Aquinas can be observed as well. It is impossible to predict what the work would have looked like had Spenser lived to complete it, but the reliability of the predictions made in his letter to Raleigh is not absolute, as numerous divergences from that scheme emerged as early as 1590, in the first Faerie Queene publication.
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The graphic images that comprise this package are superior re-creations of borders, initials, headers, dividers and scrolls from the most famous of Walter Crane's works: the illustration of The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. George Allen Ruskin House published this work in London in six volumes from 1894 to 1997.
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Edmund Spenser