The Poetical Works of - OUDL Home

1 INTRODUCTION
discourteous woman 1 But this book has its own distinctive character
The pastoral world was deeply associated with Spenser's own personal
experience, and as he turns to it again, though his story has still the
character of naive impossible romance, its setting and its atmosphere grow
at Once more tender, more natural, more intimate Sir Calidore is here
a welcome guest, but it is the home of Colin Clout, and in a beautiful
yet surprising episode Colin is himself introduced piping for the dance of
the Graces and his own fair bride, and celebrating her as his ideal of
womanly courtesy. The contrast with the relentless conception of justice
which precedes it, gives an enhanced beauty to the virtue enshrined
in the sixth book
(The reader who has followed the wandering progress of the Faerie
Qeene to the point where Spenser left it may well be puzzled at its
construction Its plot as originally designed was loose enough, and in the
process of development it has become looser still Upton, indeed, in the
eighteenth, century, had the audacity to claim for it the unity of a classical
lepic , but it is obvious that even if it had been completed it could not
have been other than a discursive romance To his ' general intention'
and meaning Spenser has kept with sufficient clearness, but that intention
is, after all, something apart from the story, and encourages digression
The adventures intermeddled, but rather as accidents than intendments,'
throw far more light upon the moral conception than is commonly
supposed, but they complicate the narrative, and by their very interest
and importance obscure the development of an already inchoate plot
Spenser realized this himself, and towards the close of the sixth book he
offered a defence of his rambling method
Like as a ship, that through the Ocean wyde
Directs her course vnto one certaine cost,
Is met of many a counter winde and tyde,
With which her winged speed is let and crost,
And she her selfe in stormie surges tost,
Yet making many a borde, and many a bay,
Still winneth way, ne hath her compasse lost
Right so it fares with me in this long way,
Whose course is often stayd, yet neuer is astray (vi xii i )
e defence will make no converts Those who are imbued with the
I horror of voyaging upon strange seas will travel uneasily in this
Hirabella Spenser has by some critics (e g Upton and Dean Church) been
ed to refer to Rosalind, his first love ' Spenser's long fostered revenge on the
, who had once scorned him' (Church) The statement is absolutely unfounded,
a there is nothing in Spenser's character to justify it Moreover, the circumstances
not fit Rosalind had preferred the love of Menalcas to Cohn's, which Colin
aturally enough regretted but could not regard as discourteous, Mirabella was
heartless coquette (vin 20) If Spenser had wished to insult Rosalind, he would
not have chosen to do it in his book ' of Courtesy . His true feelings with regard to
more accurately expressed in his autobiographical poem (C C C H A 926-51)
only a year or two before this