Edmund Spenser, born about 1552 and dead on 13 January 1599, was the most ambitious English poet of the later Elizabethan age and one of the chief architects of the English literary canon. His achievement rests above all on The Faerie Queene, the vast unfinished romance-epic through which he attempted to give Protestant England a national mythology, a moral education, and a poetic language equal to those of classical…
“I labour to pourtraict in Arthur, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private moral virtues.”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Irish Poets, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness
In the pantheon of Elizabethan literature, few figures embody the Renaissance ideal as completely as Sir Philip Sidney. Born into privilege on November 30, 1554, at Penshurst Place in Kent, Sidney would live only thirty-one years, yet his brief existence would illuminate the literary landscape of England with such brilliance that his influence continues to resonate more than four centuries after his death. His life r…
“Of all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar.”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
