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Faerie Queene: Queen Elizabeth
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The study of the Faerie Queene should be preceded by a review of the great age in which it was written. An intimate relation exists between the history of the English nation and the works of English authors. This close connection between purely external events and literary masterpieces is especially marked in a study of the Elizabethan Age. To understand the marvelous outburst of song, the incomparable drama, and the stately prose of this period, one must enter deeply into the political, social, and religious life of the times.
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Rufus Wood contextualizes his study of The Faerie Queene through an initial discussion of attitudes towards metaphor expressed in Elizabethan poetry. He reveals how Elizabethan writers voice a commitment to metaphor as a means of discovering and exploring their world and shows how the concept of a metaphoric principle of structure underlying Elizabethan poetics generates an exciting interpretation of The Faerie Queene. The debate which emerges concerning the use and abuse of metaphor in allegorical poetry provides a valuable contribution to the field of Spenser studies in particular and Renaissance literature in general.
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Spenser held a considerable reputation as a poet prior to the release of The Faerie Queene, yet this work has overshadowed his other writings. The Faerie Queene was immediately successful, thanks in part to its finding favor with Queen Elizabeth. She named Spenser poet laureate, and he assumed a position with Geoffrey Chaucer as a premier poet of England.
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[W]rites Edmund Spenser in the letter that introduces his 16th century masterpiece, The Faerie Queene. In this respect, his work is characteristic of its age; it is meant to show people how to live properly. But unlike other "Courtesy Books" popular at the time, such as Castiglione's Courtier, The Faerie Queene is written in verse, and the Elizabethans believed verse should instruct and delight.
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Queen Elizabeth