Student Question
What anxieties did Edmund Spenser have during his poetic career?
Quick answer:
Edmund Spenser's poetic career was marked by anxieties about religious and political stability in Elizabethan England. He feared the potential for religious chaos and foreign threats, such as Spain. In works like The Faerie Queen, he used allegory to express these concerns, portraying the struggle of the Anglican Church against its enemies. Spenser also worried about the transient nature of human emotions, as seen in his sonnets, while his financial anxieties were somewhat alleviated by a royal stipend.
Edmund Spenser lived during a period when England had finally emerged from a long period of internal wars, religious transformation, and uncertainties about the legitimate monarchy that would emerge. Elizabeth I not only stabilized the situation, she made England into a world power by carrying out a successful war against Spain.
One can understand Spenser mainly by considering this historical context. No one in England at that time could be sure that the country would retain its stability and not possibly be defeated by a foreign power (Spain) or lapse into religious chaos. Spenser was a devout Church of England adherent. In The FaerieQueen, he presents an allegory of what, for his time, was a desperate struggle of the true (in the Anglican view) church against its enemies. Redcrosse is prophesied to be the champion of this new, stable religious realm: "Thou Saint George shalt called bee /...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
Saint George of merrie England, the sign of victoree." His defeat of the Dragon symbolizes the triumph over the false church.
Other works by Spenser reflect a similar concern about religion, typically expressed in allegorical terms. Astrophel is an elegy on the death of the poet Philip Sidney, who was killed fighting the Spanish in the Netherlands in defense of the Protestant Dutch. Spenser also obsessed about the need for Ireland to be fully "subdued" by the English. The Irish adherence to Roman Catholicism was seen as a huge threat, and, unfortunately, Spenser expressed his fear of it in a manner which set the tone for, or at least encouraged, the centuries of oppression and violence the English imposed upon Ireland.
When not focused upon religion, Spenser poetically expressed his anxieties about the transient form that human emotion can take, namely, the vulnerability of love and devotion. "One day I wrote her name upon the strand / But came the waves and washed it away." This sonnet is probably his most famous one from Amoretti. It expresses both the fear of the ephemeral nature of earthly life and also the reassurance, by his mistress, that through art and through poetry, his love and fame will be assured.
In his personal life, Spenser was fortunate to have been granted a stipend by the queen. As a result, the normal anxiety everyone in the arts has about where the money is going to come from was at least partly relieved by the woman whose greatness he celebrated so vividly in The Faerie Queen.