with a three thousand–acre country estate
in Kilcolman, County Cork, which he in-
tended as a center of English settlement
and colonization. In early 1590, the first
three books ofThe Faerie Queeneappeared
in London. Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth,
the poem was a celebration of the rise of
the English nation and England’s identity
as a Protestant land that stood in proud
independence from the Catholic Church
and its medieval institutions. Spenser took
as his model the twelve books of Virgil’s
Aeneid, the national epic of ancient Rome.
Each of the twelve books ofThe Faerie
Queenewas to consider one of the twelve
moral virtues of Aristotle, as seen through
the life and acts of a chivalric knight mod-
eled on the heroes of Arthurian legend.
The poem would become a national epic
of England, but also a grand allegory that
combined Christian morality with ancient
philosophies of Aristotle and Plato. For
this work Spenser developed a new poetic
form, the nine-line “Spenserian stanza,”
which was taken up by major English po-
ets in the following centuries. Although
written in archaic language and relying on
the medieval traditions of chivalry,
Spenser’s inspiration by classical pagan
philosophies made his poem a truly Re-
naissance work.
The Faerie Queene was considered a
great work when it was published, but
Spenser failed in his efforts to win a lucra-
tive position at court. Having received
fame and a substantial income from sales
of the work, he returned to Ireland from
London in 1591. He published a collection
of shorter poems under the title Com-
plaints. He also wrote an autobiographical
poem entitledColin Clout’s Come Home
Again, describing his life and fame in Lon-
don and his attempts to fit in to the life of
the royal court. Readers and critics praised
hisAmoretti, love sonnets in the style of
the Italian poet Torquato Tasso, and his
Epithalamion, an ode to love and marriage
that he wrote on the occasion of his
wedding to Elizabeth Boyle. His best-
known essay,View of the Present State of
Ireland, supported the policies of Lord
Grey and suggested a new program for
English administration of Ireland, in which
the Irish language and culture would be
suppressed and replaced with what was
in his view the superior moral and cul-
tural life of the English. As the work
was critical of England’s policy, it was not
published until well after the author’s
death.
Spenser published three more books of
The Faerie Queenein 1595, but his ambi-
tion to create an epic in twelve books was
not accomplished. In 1598 he became the
sheriff of Cork. Soon after this a rebellion
broke out and he was forced to flee his
home, which was destroyed by the rebels.
After returning to London and giving a
report to the queen on his experience in
Ireland, he became ill and died. By this
time regarded as one of the finest poets in
England, he was buried with honors in
Westminster Abbey.The Faerie Queenebe-
came one of the most influential poetic
works in English, and inspired later poets
from John Milton to William Wordsworth.SEEALSO: Elizabeth I; England; Milton,
John; Shakespeare, WilliamStampa, Gaspara .............................
(ca. 1523–1554)
Italian poet whose sonnets in the style of
Petrarch, dedicated to a largely unrequited
love, made her reputation as one of the
finest poets of the Italian Renaissance.
Born in Padua, she moved to Venice at the
age of eight with her mother Cecilia, soon
after the death of her father, BartolomeoStampa, Gaspara