Edmund Spenser - Amoretti, A Sonnet Cycle: Also includes EPITHALAMION & PROTHALAMION: or, A SPOUSALL VERSE

by Edmund Spenser

Adelaide Anne Procter was born on 30th October, 1825 at 25 Bedford Square in the Bloomsbury district of London. Her literary career began whilst still a teenager. Many of her poems were published by the great Charles Dickens in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round before being later published in book form. A voracious reader, Procter was largely self-taught, though she did study at Queen's College in Harley Street in 1850. Her interest in poetry grew from an early age. Procter published her first poem, Ministering Angels, while still a teenager in 1843. By 1853 she was submitting pieces to Dickens's Household Words under her pseudonym Mary Berwick, electing that this way her work would be judged for its own worth rather than on the friendship between her father and Dickens. Dickens didn’t learn of her true identity for over a year. Minstering Angels was to be the beginning of a long and mutually beneficial relationship of publishing in Dickens’ journals that would eventually reach 73 poems in House words together with a further 7 poems in All the Year Round, most of which were collected and later published into her first two volumes of poetry, both entitled Legends and Lyrics. Proctor was also the editor of the journal Victoria Regia, which became the showpiece of the Victoria Press, a venture hoping to promote the employment of women in all manner of trades and professions. Procter’s health failed in 1862. Dickens and others suggested that this illness was due to her extensive and exhausting schedule of charity work. An attempt to improve her health by taking a cure at Malvern failed. Adelaide Anne Proctor died on 3rd February 1864 of tuberculosis. She had been bed-ridden for almost a year. Procter was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

Genres: Poetry

56 pages, Paperback

Published February 19, 2018

About the author

Edmund 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.

Reviews

[Zuzanna W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now, I've always been a Spenser hater, but, you know what? This wasn't half bad. Epithalamion got really saucy. There were also a few Sonnets from Amoretti that I especially enjoyed, such as: 22, 77, and the 4th Anacreontic. Cupid being stung by the little bee was just really cute. I liked the intensity of the 14th stanza of Epithalamion.

I mainly read this for Shakespeare's Sonnets. All this toil for what will probably be one line in my introduction, but that's okay. This year, I'm going to ruminate over the literature I read and not slam through it as I usually do. That said, my reading challenge has been set to 100, which is mildly contradictory but a girl's gotta grind, ya know?

Useful for: carpe diem, Neoplatonism; Ficino review coming soon.

[Caomhghain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epithalamion and Prothalamion are two of Spenser's finest works, worthy to stand with The Faerie Queen. Epithalamion is a step by step, loving evocation of a bride's wedding day evoking both the excitement, the sense of formal occasion and the very personal.
Prothalamion is a more formal piece, rather stately but still delightful.

[Liv · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love LV:

So oft as I her beauty doe behold,
And therewith doe her cruelty compare,
I marvaile of what substance was the mould
The which her made attonce so cruell faire.
Not earth; for her high thoughts more heavenly are:
Not water; for her love doth burne like fyre:
Not ayre; for she is not so light or rare;
Not fyre; for she doth friese with faint desire.
Then needs another element inquire,
Whereof she mote be made; that is, the skye.
For to the heaven her haughty looks aspire,
And eke her love is pure immortall hye.
Then sith to heaven ye lykened are the best,
Be lyke in mercy as in all the rest.