课程：英美诗歌欣赏
Session One
Part One Edmund Spenser
I. Background Information
The Renaissance in England: Renaissance is the ‘rebirth’ of
literature, art and learning that progressively transformed
European culture from the mid-14th century in Italy to the
mid-17th century in England, strongly influenced by the
rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin literature, and accelerated
by the development of printing. The Renaissance is commonly
held to mark the close of the Middle Ages and the beginning of
the modern Western world. In literary terms, the Renaissance
may be seen as a new tradition running from Petrarch and
Boccaccio in Italy to Jonson and Milton in England, embracing the
work of Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare; it is marked by a new
self-confidence in vernacular literatures, a flourishing of lyric
poetry, and a revival of such classical forms as epic and pastoral
literature.
Humanism became the key note of the English Renaissance. The
Humanists emphasized the capability of the human mind and the
achievements of human culture, in contrast to the medieval
emphasis on God and contempt for the things of this world.
English poetry in the Renaissance period has one of its highlights.
It achieved original beauty and exuberance, especially in the Age
of Elizabeth. Elizabethan poetry is notable for its variety, its
freshness, its freshness, its youthfulness, and its romantic ardor. A
group of excellent poets appeared (including Edmund Spenser,
Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson in this
book), and a large number of noble poetic works were produced.
In the Age of Elizabeth, writing poetry became a fashion.
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), the greatest nondramatic
poet of the English Renaissance, is regarded as “the poet’s poet”
because of his great influence on later poets. Spenser was born
and educated in London. Then Spenser studied at Cambridge,
where he read the classics and Italian poets and wrote poems.
The Shepheards Calendar was Spenser’s first major work, a series
of pastoral poems arranged according to the months of the year.
His masterpiece The Faerie Queene, the great romantic epic, was
published in 1590, consisting of six books. One of his major work
Amoretti, the sonnet sequence in 1595, together with
Shakespeare’s sonnets and Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella were
regarded as the most famous sonnet sequences of the
Elizabethan Age.
Spenser’s contribution to English literature lies not only in what he

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