Edmund Spenser

Spenser's masterpiece, The Faerie Queene, is among the most influential poems in the English language. It was the first epic in English and established the possibilities of heroic poetry in the English tradition. The author's intention was to rival, or surpass, the epic romances of the Italian poets Ariosto and Tasso through the "darke conceit" of this poem, which unites...

Framed in Spenser's distinctive, opulent stanza and in some of the trappings of epic, Book One of Spenser's The Faerie Queene consists of a chivalric romance that has been made to a typical recipe—fierce warres and faithfull loves—but that has been Christianised in both overt and subtle ways. The physical and moral wanderings of the Redcrosse Knight dramatise his effort...

Edmund Spenser's Poetry is now available in a revised and updated Norton Critical Edition. This revised and enlarged Fourth Edition expands and improves on the strengths of the previous three editions. All selections are based on early and established texts, fully glossed, and carefully annotated. An Editor's Note follows each section. This new edition addresses the shifts in scholarly and...