SOURCE: “E. K.,” in The Pastoral Mode: A Casebook, edited by Bryan Loughrey, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1984, pp. 29-33.
In the following dedicatory epistle to Gabriel Harvey, which was originally prefixed to the 1579 edition of Edmund Spenser's Shepheardes Calender, the writer “E. K.” (probably Edward Kirke) praises Spenser for dignifying the language with the use of archaisms and for giving his eclogues a particularly English hue.
