To understand Edmund Spenser's place in the extraordinary literary renaissance that took place in England during the last two decades of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it is helpful to begin with the remarks of the foremost literary critic of the age,...

To understand Edmund Spenser's place in the extraordinary literary renaissance that took place in England during the last two decades of Queen Elizabeth I's reign, it is helpful to begin with the remarks of the foremost literary critic of the age, Sir...

Edmund Spenser (ca. 1552-1599) ranks as the foremost English poet of the 16th century. Famous as the author of the unfinished epic poem The Faerie Queene, he is the poet of an ordered yet passionate Elizabethan world. Edmund Spenser was a man of his...

Below, King discusses the "Cult of the Virgin Queen " Elizabeth in art and literature, noting that this iconography reflects her virginity as a source of personal independence and political power.

In the following excerpt from his study of major English Renaissance poets, Mackail discusses Spenser's work with a focus on poetic influences and techniques.

Below, Rossky discusses the Renaissance notion of the poet's proper use of imagination—that imaginative writing must be based upon accurate perceptions, but that controlled and disciplined artifice can actually aid the poet in reconstructing objective, real events.