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Spenser (EDMUND extensive and he had)

EDMUND extensive. and he had thorough command of French and Italian. In his time learning was regarded as a supreme test of a poet, and Spenser's mind was unusually sensitive to all intellectual influallegory, history and antiquities, to say poetry, religious ideas, the Platonism that was at the foundation of Renaissance thought, mediæval romance and allegory, history and antiquities, to say like Raleigh and Sidney; his sympathies were with the progressive party, headed life about him. His friends were men like Raleigh and Sidney; his sympathies were with the progressive party, headed by Leicester and later by Essex, who urged that England's destinies were bound up in curbing the power of Spain, in establishing an English dominion in America, and in gaining the mastery of the sea.

All these interests, literary, philosophical, and political, are reflected in his poetry. He left Cambridge in 1576. For some time he was secretary to the terested in the political aspects of Puri- Bishop of Rochester, and became interested in the political aspects of Puritanism. By 1579 he was in London, intimate with Sidney, planning to enter the service of the Earl of Leicester, with a considerable body of poetry ready for publication, and with plans already made for the writing of his great epic. In this year he published his first important poetical work, the "Shepheard's Calender," a collection of twelve pastoral eclogues, one for each month of the year. Some of the eclogues deal with the abuses in the church and constitute a ; there are also defense of political Puritanism; others tell a poetical love love story ; examples of the singing-match, of the The tell a poetical love story; there are also examples of the singing-match, of the dirge, of the panegyric, and other forms familiar to the pastoral genre. learning, the variety of theme, the exfamiliar to the pastoral genre. The learning, the variety of theme, the exin the "new poet" England was hearing the first authentic voice of a muse that had been silent since the death of Chaucer.

At about the same time, Spenser wrote a satire in the form of a beast epic, Chaucer. a satire in the form of a beast epic, At about the same time, Spenser wrote rogue's progress of Fox and Ape. He satirizes the ignorance of the clergy, the folly of the upstart courtier, the newfangleness of court life. He praises the brave courtier in lines that constitute a famous portrait of Sidney. He also introduces an episode in which the rogues steal the crown of the lion and bring the realm to destruction, identifying the fox-ape conspiracy with the plan of Burghley and Simier to bring about a marriage between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. The Puritans looked with horror upon the proposed alliance.

Burghley and Simier to bring about a marriage between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. The Puritans looked