8/10/2019 Spenser Letter to Walter Raleigh

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LITERARY CRITICISM

Plato to Dryden

y

Allan H.

Gilbert

Professor Emerillls

of

English Lilerature

uke

University

Iqh7

Wayne State University Press Detroit

8/10/2019 Spenser Letter to Walter Raleigh

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EDMUND

SPENSER

oQ oogo

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. I t 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."

(

S P E NS E R

4

6

3

1

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jones, H. S. V., A Spenser Handbook. New

York,

1930. An

encyclopedia

of Spenser.

Langdon,

Ida, Materi alsfor a Study Spenser s Theory Fine Art.

Ithaca,

9

I Introduction and

illustrative passages.

"I

Spenser, Edmund, Works. Baltimore, 1932-1936.

LETTER

TO

SIR WALTER

RALEIGH inpart)

5

8

9

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."

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LITERARY CRITICISM

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

p r f ~ t i o n

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 ofan 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.

4

6

5

PENSER

do

otherwise shadow her.

7

~ : o r

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

1 1

I

the

whole work seemeth

abrupt

and

as depending

upon

other

i

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

11

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

1

1

forepast and divining of things to come maketh a pleasing

01

1

1

analysis of all

Thus much, Sir, I have briefly overrun to direct your under- 1

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.

9 Horace,

rt

of

Poetry,

148, above.

8 See

variery

in the

index.

7 Picture her.