Life of Edmund Spenser in Brief

 IGNOU MEG-1 Block 2 Unit 9 :

Block-2 Undertaking A Study of Spenser

Edmund Spenser:

Born in 1522 in London, to a poor family made rich through sheep farming.

Education:

School- Merchant Taylors grammar school.

University - Pembroke College in Cambridge in 1569 as  a poor scholar. Completed BA in 1573

Left education 1574 due to pandemic

Masters - MA in 1576

Studied - Italian, French, English Literature, Greek, Latin.

Spenser’s life:

1. Stayed and worked in Ireland to help colonize it.

2. Became archbishop in Dublin

3. Became an official gentleman and gained a lot of land

4. Worked for the queen as a poet and a courtier

5. Died in 1598 and buried next to Chaucer in Westminster Abbey

6. Self proclaimed Poet [less to poetry and more to rank and acceptability]

7. Married to Machabyas Chylde in 1580. Then Elizabeth Boyle 2nd wife.

8. His two fold strategy:

1- Present as a poet able to demand.

2- Not to compete in central arena of power (london) but write professionally 

Famous Works:

1. The Shepherd's Calendar (1579 or 1580)

2. The faerie queene, 

3. Colin Clouts Conte Alone Again (completed 1595), 

4. Complaints,  

5. Daphnaida, 

6. A Pastoral Elegy upon the Death of the most Noble and Valorous Knight,Sir Philip Sidney, 

7. Fowre Hymnes

8. The Amoretti: Sonnet 34, 67, 77

9. the Epithalamion, 

10. Prothalamion.

You can check out my YouTube videos on the same topic where I have explained everything in Hindi in detail. Links are below-

Block-2 Undertaking A Study of Spenser

Renaissance

Edmund Spenser

Sonnet 34
Sonnet 67
Sonnet 77

Sonnet 34,67,77

Epithalamion & Prothalamion

Epithalamion 1/2

Epithalamion 2/2

Prothalamion

More related and helpful links in the description box of my YouTube channel.