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Edmund Spenser

Type Figure Region England Time c. 1552–1599 Also known as Edmund Spenser、Spenser、斯宾塞

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–1599), English poet and a major figure of Elizabethan epic and pastoral verse, wrote The Faerie Queene at Kilcolman Castle wh…

Timeline

  1. 1581–1589Kilcolman · County CorkIn 1580 Spenser was granted lands in Munster and moved to Kilcolman Castle, serving as a local official and in military organization. There he continued composing The Faerie Queene, using the fairy realm of Faerorie to mirror Elizabethan England, creating allegorical figures such as the Red Cross Knight, and blending chivalric romance, Reformation ethics, and anti-Catholic political allegory; he completed the bulk of the first three books.
  2. 1589–1590London · LondonSpenser returned to England with the manuscript of The Faerie Queene in 1589; William Ponsonby published the first three books in 1590, dedicated to Elizabeth I. The queen granted him a pension of fifty pounds, and the work was warmly received by scholars and literary circles; his invented nine-line stanza (the Spenserian stanza) became an important meter in English poetry, marking his rise from colonial official to first-rank poet of the Elizabethan age.

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