LITERARY CRITICISM

Plato to

Dryden

by
Allan H. Gilbert
Professor Emerillls of English Lilerature

Duke University

Iqh7

Wayne State University Press

Detroit

("
SPENSER

4 63

II"
1111

EDMUND SPENSER
oQoogo

ONE OF THE GREAT LOSSES to English criticism is the disappearance of

Spenser's English Poet. It is true that he composed it early in his career.
since it seems to have been finished when the Shepherd's Calendar was
printed,! yet even then his reflections on the long narrative poem must
have been sufficiently influenced by his plan and probable labors on
the Faerie Queene to link his critical work with the great poem. After
he had actually pl' blished part or all of his epic as we now have it, he
would have been still better fitted to explain it. It seems that he might,
like Tasso, have defended his methods, or have written somewhat in
the strain that Giraldi employed in explaining Ariosto. Obviously
Spenser was familiar with the issue between the classical epic and the
romance, and clearly too, though like Giraldi he valued Homer and
Vergil, he was still nearer to Tasso; with respect to structure his af
finity with Ariosto is very close, though his use of twelve separate
heroes is unparalleled among romantic epics, as he must have well
understood. Possibly, however, his plan was not developed quite to
that state when he produced the English Poet. He may not have been
in so good a position for explaining the English epic as was Jonson for
apologizing for the English drama, but it may still be supposed that
something would have been said calculated to restrain the worst ex
cesses of classical critics during the next two centuries.
Indications of what he wrote we probably can gather from the letter
to Raleigh (which in various respects may be compared with Dante's
letter to Can Grande). Something more is furnished by the Eclogue
for October in the Shepherd's Calendar, with its accompanying matter.
Especially we learn from the argument and the emblem that poetry is
"a divine gift and heavenly instinct not to be gotten by labor and
learning, but adorned with both, and poured into the wit by a certain
EPf)ovrnaap.os and celestial inspiration," or that it is "divine instinct
and unnatural rage passing the reach of common reason." Little of
this is apparent from the letter to Raleigh, which gives the didactic
theory for which the beauty of poetry is but a means to the end of
instruction. Spenser shows little of Sidney's zeal for "right poetry,"
being apparently content that art should serve a didactic end.
lShepherd's Calendar, Argument to "October."

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jones, H. S. V., A Spenser Handbook. New York, 1930. An encyclopedia
of Spenser.
Langdon, Ida, Materialsfor a Study if Spenser's Theory if Fine Art. Ithaca,
191 I. Introduction and illustrative passages.
Spenser, Edmund, Works. Baltimore, 1932-1936.

LETTER TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH (inpart)

15 89

Sir: Knowing how doubtfully all allegories may be construed,

and this book of mine, which I have entitled the Faerie Q.ueene,

being a continued allegory or dark conceit, I have thought good

as well for avoiding of jealous opinions and misconstructions,l as

also for your better light in reading thereof (being so by you

commanded) to discover unto you the general intention and mean

ing which in the whole course thereof I have fashioned, without

expressing of any particular purposes or by-accidents therein oc

casioned. The general end therefore of all the book is to fashion a

gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline. 2 Which

for that I conceived should be most plausible and pleasing being

colored with an historical fiction-the which the most part of men

delight to read rather for variety of matter than for profit of the

ensample-I chose the history of King Arthur as most fit for the

excellency of his person, being made famous by many men's former

works and also furthest from the danger of envy and suspicion of

present time. In which I have followed all the antique poets

historical: first, Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and

Ulysses hath. ensampled a good governor and a virtuous man,

the one in his Iliad, the other in his Odyssey; then Vergil, whose like

intention was to do in the person of Aeneas; after him Ariosto

comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso dissevered

, them again and formed both parts in two persons, namely, that
1 Perhaps by the spies of the statesmen of the time, and even by the statesmen
themselves, who gave political interpretations to literature. The "suspicion of the
present time," mentioned a few lines further, perhaps has the same suggestion.
2 Jonson, in the dedicalion of Volpone to the universities, speaks of the poet as "able

to inform young men to all good disciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues,

keep old men in their best and supreme state."

"I

464

part which they in philosophy call ethice, or virtues of a private

man, colored in his Rinaldo, the other named politice in his
Godfredo. 3 By ensample of which excellent poets I labor to por
tray in Arthur before he was king the image of a brave knight per
fected in the twelve private moral virtues as i.ristotle hath de
vised, the which is the purpose of these first twelve books. Which
if I find to be well accepted I may be perhaps encouraged to
frame the other part of politic virtues in his person after that he
came to be king. To some I know this method will seem dis
pleasant, which had rather have good discipline delivered plainly
in way of precepts or sermoned at large, as they use, than thus
cloudily enwrapped in allegorical devices. But such, me seem,
should be satisfied with the use of these days, seeing all things
accounted by their shows and nothing esteemed of that is not
delightful and pleasing to common sense. For this cause is
Xenophon preferred before Plato, for that the one in the exquisite
depth of his judgment formed a commonwealth such as it should
be, but the other in the person of Cyrus and the Persians fashioned
a government sueh as might best be;4 so much more profitable and
gracious is doctrine by example than by rule. s So have I labored
to do in the person of Arthur, whom I conceive after his long
education by Timon, to whom he was by Merlin delivered to be
brought up so soon as he was born of the Lady Igraine, to have
seen in a dream or vision the Faerie Queen. With whose excellent
beauty ravished, he awaking resolved to seek her out, and so being
by Merlin armed and by Timon thoroughly instructed, he went
to seek her forth in Faerie Land. In that Faerie Queen I mean
glory in my general intention, but in my particular I conceive the
most excellent and glorious person of our sovereign the Queen,
and her kingdom in Faerie Land. 6 And yet in some places else I
ocr.

Sidney's opinion (Difense, sect. 10, above). Scaliger devotes a chapter to the
high qualities of Aeneas, concluding: "We therefore have in Aeneas alone a sort of
Socr;ltic idea of any person; his perf~ction seems to emulate Nature herself in genus,
and in special and private instances "ven to surpass her" (Poetice, III, 12, p. 95C2).
In the preface to Alaric, a heroic poem (1654) by Georges de Scudery, we read:
"One sees in the person ot Aeneas perfect piety, in Achilles high valor, in Ulysses the
nicest, most exquisite prudence. And it is in accordance with these high originals that I
have tried to show in the person of Alaric, to form the idea of an accomplished prince,
both the piety of the first, the valor of the second, and the prudence of the third."
4 For Xenophon's Cyropaedia see Sidney's Defense, sees. 16,21,23,24, above.
6 The rules or precepts of the philosophers. See Sidney, Defense, sect. 21, above.
6 Cf. Dante's allegorical method explained in his letter to Can Grande, above. The
Faerie Queen is literally Elizabeth, figuratively she is glory. The second is obviously
the more important.

46 5

SPENSER

LITERARY CRITICISM

do otherwise shadow her. 7 ~:,'or considering sr:e0eareth two per

sons, the one of a most royal queen or empress, the other of a most
virtuous and beautiful lady, this latter part in some places I do
express in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to your own
excellent conception of Cynthia (Phoebe and Cynthia being both
names of Diana). So in the person of Prince Arthur I set forth
magnificence in particular, which virtue, for that (according to
Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest and con
taineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the
deeds of Arthur appliable to that virtue which I write of in that
book. But of the twelve other virtues I make twelve other knights
the patrons, for the more variety of the history,S of which these
three books contain three. The first of the Knight of the Red
crosse, in whom I express holiness; the second of Sir Guyon, in
whom I set forth temperance; the third of Britomartis, a lady
knight, in whom I picture chastity. But because the beginning of
the whole work seemeth abrupt and as depending upon other
antecedents, it needs that ye know the occasion of these three
knights' several adventures. For the method of a poet historical
is not such as of an historiographer. For an historiographer dis
courseth of affairs orderly as they were done, accounting as well
the times as the actions; but a poet thrusteth into the midst even
where it most concerneth him,9 and there recoursing to the things
forepast and divining of things to come maketh a pleasing

'\

1'1

11)
,1

111

01

analysis of all....
Thus much, Sir, I have briefly overrun to direct your under
standing to the well-head of the history, that from thence gather
ing the whole intention of the conceit ye may as in a handful grip
all the discourse, which otherwise may haply seem tedious and
confused.
7

Picture her.

8 See

variery in the index.

Horace, Art of Poetry, 148, above.

"