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…
“By the person of Prince Arthur I understand Magnificence in general, which virtue, I take to be the perfection of all the rest.”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Irish Poets, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness
In the twilight of the Elizabethan era, as the golden age of English poetry shimmered with the final glow of Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare, a quieter, more intimate voice emerged from the shadows of courtly patronage and cathedral choirs — that of Thomas Greaves. Though his life remains shrouded in mystery, his music, particularly his songs set to anonymous and likely contemporary poetry, survives as a luminous te…
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Irony, Longing
