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The Shorter Poems
While The Faerie Queene is his masterpiece, Edmund Spenser showed his supreme versatility and skill as eulogist, satirist, pastoral poet, and prophet in his shorter poetry. This new edition demonstrates the point. Included in this volume are The Shepheardes Calender, twelve poems that mark a turning point in literary history, as the anonymous author confidently asserts his faith in the native vigor of the English language; the Amoretti and Hymnes, which reveal an acute sense of how erotic and even religious love are shot through with vanity and narcissism; Mother Hubberds Tale, an Elizabethan Animal Farm; and the Epithalamion, a rare celebration of consummated desire that is offset by far darker echoes. To assist readers with Spenser's many allusions to biblical, classical, and contemporary literature, Richard A. McCabe provides an insightful Introduction and detailed notes.
"Spenser is most commonly celebrated as the author of The Faerie Queene, yet had he written nothing other than the works collected in the present volume he would still rank amongst the foremost of English poets."--Richard A. McCabe, from the Introduction
"Spenser is most commonly celebrated as the author of The Faerie Queene, yet had he written nothing other than the works collected in the present volume he would still rank amongst the foremost of English poets."--Richard A. McCabe, from the Introduction
780 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1579
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About the author
Edmund Spenser
1,415 books312 followersEdmund Spenser (c. 1552 - 1599) was an important English poet and Poet Laureate best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem celebrating, through fantastical allegory, the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I.
Though he is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, Spenser is also a controversial figure due to his zeal for the destruction of Irish culture and colonisation of Ireland.
Though he is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, Spenser is also a controversial figure due to his zeal for the destruction of Irish culture and colonisation of Ireland.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 22, 2012
I have a love/hate relationship with Edmund Spenser. I think he is one of the most beautiful and talented and creative writers in the large pantheon of English Literature, however, he can be so difficult and dense and frustrating! That said, his poetry is more than worth working through but its great having someone to instruct you through the process. The Sheapherdes Calender is trying to get through but it’s very foundational if anyone plans to read more Spenser. It’s a good read once you get the hang of the language and conventions. Prosopopoia is a classic, the fable is fabulous and entertaining. Muiopotmos is easily my favourite Spenser poem, it tells the story of the tragic death of the heroic butterfly Clarion at the hands of the malignant spider Aragnoll. It’s fabulously epic! Then of course you can’t skip Epithalamion and Prothalamion, two of the most celebrated poems Spenser wrote. Love is always popular.
This is a great collection of all of Spenser’s shorter poems, which means everything he wrote except The Faerie Queene. Any Spenser fan would enjoy this.
This is a great collection of all of Spenser’s shorter poems, which means everything he wrote except The Faerie Queene. Any Spenser fan would enjoy this.
August 5, 2009
The Shepheardes Calendar is brilliant, far superior to Faerie Queene. The Amoretti and Epithalamion are wonderful accounts of love and marriage, with a hint of biography as Spenser charts progress on his work. Colin Clout's Home Againe is not a great work, but it is important to his ouevre. Overall, a good collection to have on one's shelf if you're interested in Renaissance literature.
June 11, 2018
Edmund Spenser: The Shorter Poems just happened to be one of the (numerous) textbooks for my 16th Century Literature class. Since my first presentation and paper for the class “happened” to be on Spenser’s Amoretti, an 89-poem sonnet sequence, I am intimately familiar with this book. My poor copy has become quite dog-eared and marked with margin notes and highlighting ink, but the book itself is holding up well, as is the poet himself; it’s the editor with whom I have issues.
The Poems
This volume, a Penguin edition, contains every known poem by Edmund Spenser, except The Faerie Queene which is its own 700+ page book. Shorter Poems includes The Shepheardes Calendar, twelve pastoral eclogues with a decided political commentary, along with the accompanying Colin Clout’s Come Home Again; Amoretti, Anacreontics and Epithalamion, chronicling Spenser’s courtship and marriage to Elizabeth Boyle; Fowre Hymnes, Prothalamion, and various other poems, sonnets, and verses.
Spenser, born in 1552, is undoubtedly one of the premiere poets of English literature. His shorter poetry alone would have earned him a burial in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey in 1599, but The Faerie Queene, Spenser’s epic, more firmly anchored him as one of the Renaissance “greats.” Spenser’s poetry demonstrates his ingeniousness in weaving themes, motifs, humor, political commentary, and autobiographical details into his work. Unfortunately, not many readers today will automatically recognize the wealth of intertextual references in Spenser’s poems and we need extensive notes to help us.
Structure
That’s where this textbook falls apart. The editor, Richard A. McCabe, chose to present all of the poetry and illustrations just as they would have appeared when printed. Not one word is marked with a footnote. The poems fill 504 pages. The notes at the end of the book fill another 231, plus an index, glossary and introduction. While reading The Shepheardes Calendar, I found myself flipping back and forth from the poem to the notes for introductions to each eclogue, vocabulary clarification, political references, etc. This method was an extreme waste of time. I found it easier to read the introductions to each eclogue, read the poem, and muddle my way through without referring to the notes at all. Every Norton Anthology has footnotes at the bottom of each page and introductions, if needed, placed prior to each piece. It’s much easier, and less time-consuming, to flick my eyes down to the bottom of the page and read a footnote, no matter how extensive, then continue reading. Everything I need is on the same page, no flipping back and forth, losing my place, or giving up on the notes altogether. Many times I looked in the notes for help and that particular piece of the poem was not footnoted; of course I had no way of knowing that until I flipped to the back because the footnoted items aren’t indicated by any sort of marker.
McCabe has done extensive research into Spenser and his work, and his notes would be much more useful if he had structured the book so that the notes appeared at the bottom of each page, or even, at the end of each poem or section, rather than meshed together at the back of the book. Or, he could do something completely sane and indicate what’s footnoted just so the reader would know.
Conclusion
After reading Spenser’s shorter poems, I have a much greater appreciation of his work and I am amazed again and again with all that he packs into rhyming couplets. However, McCabe has done Spenser, and modern readers, a grave disservice with the cumbersome structure of this collection. Professors and teachers: please find a better-constructed textbook of Spenser’s poetry; his work and the students who study him deserve it.
The Poems
This volume, a Penguin edition, contains every known poem by Edmund Spenser, except The Faerie Queene which is its own 700+ page book. Shorter Poems includes The Shepheardes Calendar, twelve pastoral eclogues with a decided political commentary, along with the accompanying Colin Clout’s Come Home Again; Amoretti, Anacreontics and Epithalamion, chronicling Spenser’s courtship and marriage to Elizabeth Boyle; Fowre Hymnes, Prothalamion, and various other poems, sonnets, and verses.
Spenser, born in 1552, is undoubtedly one of the premiere poets of English literature. His shorter poetry alone would have earned him a burial in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey in 1599, but The Faerie Queene, Spenser’s epic, more firmly anchored him as one of the Renaissance “greats.” Spenser’s poetry demonstrates his ingeniousness in weaving themes, motifs, humor, political commentary, and autobiographical details into his work. Unfortunately, not many readers today will automatically recognize the wealth of intertextual references in Spenser’s poems and we need extensive notes to help us.
Structure
That’s where this textbook falls apart. The editor, Richard A. McCabe, chose to present all of the poetry and illustrations just as they would have appeared when printed. Not one word is marked with a footnote. The poems fill 504 pages. The notes at the end of the book fill another 231, plus an index, glossary and introduction. While reading The Shepheardes Calendar, I found myself flipping back and forth from the poem to the notes for introductions to each eclogue, vocabulary clarification, political references, etc. This method was an extreme waste of time. I found it easier to read the introductions to each eclogue, read the poem, and muddle my way through without referring to the notes at all. Every Norton Anthology has footnotes at the bottom of each page and introductions, if needed, placed prior to each piece. It’s much easier, and less time-consuming, to flick my eyes down to the bottom of the page and read a footnote, no matter how extensive, then continue reading. Everything I need is on the same page, no flipping back and forth, losing my place, or giving up on the notes altogether. Many times I looked in the notes for help and that particular piece of the poem was not footnoted; of course I had no way of knowing that until I flipped to the back because the footnoted items aren’t indicated by any sort of marker.
McCabe has done extensive research into Spenser and his work, and his notes would be much more useful if he had structured the book so that the notes appeared at the bottom of each page, or even, at the end of each poem or section, rather than meshed together at the back of the book. Or, he could do something completely sane and indicate what’s footnoted just so the reader would know.
Conclusion
After reading Spenser’s shorter poems, I have a much greater appreciation of his work and I am amazed again and again with all that he packs into rhyming couplets. However, McCabe has done Spenser, and modern readers, a grave disservice with the cumbersome structure of this collection. Professors and teachers: please find a better-constructed textbook of Spenser’s poetry; his work and the students who study him deserve it.
November 20, 2021
Can a fundamentally unattractive personality be a great poet? After all, the art exposes the soul to public view as no other. And behind the music and sensuousness of Spenser’s lines, I believe I can feel the mind of a cynical, ruthless and materialistic man – the man who went as a colonist to Ireland and wholeheartedly supported the Elizabethan genocide there. In his work there is little of the humanity of a Chaucer, the wisdom of a Dante, or the vision of a Milton; though outwardly it is idyllic and Arcadian, base worldly considerations are never far away. Although I don’t believe he had a genuinely religious bone in his body – not least, because he is always invoking the classical pagan gods – he constantly nips at the Catholic church. In the Shepherd’s Calendar he tells his readers what they ought to think, and disparages in advance anyone who might not like it. Prothalamion is full of sumptuous imagery, but is essentially grubbing for a commission; and even when he is supposed to be celebrating his own bride he seems more bothered about the verses by which he will immortalise her (that is to say, about his own immortality!). It’s one thing to have, as the introduction puts it, ‘political and social aspirations’ – all the great poets did – but it’s fatal to let the reader see that they are actually your main motivation.
In short I believe he was a man in love with the idea of poetry, maybe – certainly with the glamour of olden times – and with great technical skill in it, but who was essentially coarse, unoriginal and small-minded. I think this is reflected in his having been more respected by fellow-poets than by the public at large: they are in awe of his technical achievement, knowing how difficult it is (and in that respect he has the seal of the master, the ability to make the difficult look easy), and probably haven’t paid too much attention to what his poems are actually about.
This edition takes the step of modernizing the spelling – thank goodness for an editor with some common sense, and who is willing to do some work! – and otherwise provides every aid to help the reader understand the poems. But on the whole it isn’t difficult.
In short I believe he was a man in love with the idea of poetry, maybe – certainly with the glamour of olden times – and with great technical skill in it, but who was essentially coarse, unoriginal and small-minded. I think this is reflected in his having been more respected by fellow-poets than by the public at large: they are in awe of his technical achievement, knowing how difficult it is (and in that respect he has the seal of the master, the ability to make the difficult look easy), and probably haven’t paid too much attention to what his poems are actually about.
This edition takes the step of modernizing the spelling – thank goodness for an editor with some common sense, and who is willing to do some work! – and otherwise provides every aid to help the reader understand the poems. But on the whole it isn’t difficult.
Read
September 21, 2023Caveat: I only read The Shepheard’s Calendar. I understand The Faerie Queen is really something and I no doubt will have cause to read it at some point in earning my degree.
How do you rate something like this? I don’t know. Without historical and literary context, it reads like a tryhard love letter to Chaucer, and it kind of is inside that context too, but there is a sly and knowing bite to the ecclesiasticals and a self-awareness in the glosses from “E.K.” That make it an interesting work. I rolled my eyes a lot, and smirked, and frustratedly read and re-read and re-read because I never felt like I was “getting it” and also because I was having such fun hearing someone with a thick Scottish or northern UK accent read it in my head that it would distract me from the meaning.
Anyway, now I write the comparative analysis between one of the months and one of Virgil’s eclogues, then it’s off to Longus and Sidney.
How do you rate something like this? I don’t know. Without historical and literary context, it reads like a tryhard love letter to Chaucer, and it kind of is inside that context too, but there is a sly and knowing bite to the ecclesiasticals and a self-awareness in the glosses from “E.K.” That make it an interesting work. I rolled my eyes a lot, and smirked, and frustratedly read and re-read and re-read because I never felt like I was “getting it” and also because I was having such fun hearing someone with a thick Scottish or northern UK accent read it in my head that it would distract me from the meaning.
Anyway, now I write the comparative analysis between one of the months and one of Virgil’s eclogues, then it’s off to Longus and Sidney.
September 24, 2022
After four years of studies, it's sad to be unacquainted with the form, conceits and topoi of Renaissance poetry. Or a serious study of poetry at all. So I read it for that, and was surprised instead to find sarcasm, sadness and a wry anxiety in the poetic voice.
September 20, 2023
4.5★ - I would actually buy this and read it again. I loved the sonnet cycle and the chronological aspect of the elevation from courtship to matrimony. Every word was so beautifully arranged and the bars were simply fire. Love love loved this!
September 9, 2018
i hate this
September 4, 2021
Beautiful set of poems and accompanied by invaluable notes and glossary to help with Spenser's obscure diction.
September 7, 2008
Everyone always focuses on The Faerie Queene but this is where the real gold is. Spenser was a lyricist before anything else and his quest to complete the Rota Virgilli produced some of the best short poems in the English language. I particularly recommend "The Shepheardes Calender", a pastoral masterpiece that combines Elizabethan politics with the growth of a poet. For the mathematically inclined, check out the "Amoretti/Epithalamion" and pay particular attention to the symmetrical relationships. Spenser was a genius, no one disputes that, and to really "get it" you simply must read these poems.
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August 5, 2010Shepheardes Calender
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews