The Poetical Works of - OUDL Home

Ivi INTRODUCTION
The ideal conception of modesty is bodied forth in the lady, the human
quality of modesty is the very essence of Guyon's personality. The two
meet for one vivid moment in the spacious halls of Alma, the Soul. And
thelarger world in which they meet is the ideal world of Spenser's
imagination.
This world of faery land is wide enough to embrace all that was most
precious to Spenser in his own experience With its chivalrous combats
and its graceful leisure, its tangle of incident and character, its dense
forest and glades, and pleasant sunny interspaces, where the smoke rises
from the homely cottage or the stream trickles down with a low murmur
inviting repose and meditation, it could mirror both the world of his
philosophic vision and the real world of the Irish countryside, of court
intrigues, of European politics, of his own loves and friendships. The
romantic setting of the faery forest and the idealizing form of allegory
are more than a picturesque convention They are the fitting artistic
expression, of that mood in which he looked out on the strangeness
and the beauty of life, and brooded over its inner meaning
It was inevitable that his faery land should be enriched with the spoils
of literary reminiscence A student from his youth, he had lived a full
and eager life in books, and his imagination was kindled in the study as
in the outer world To know the sources of his art is to be familiar with
the library to which the Elizabethan scholar had access Spenser draws
with equal freedom from the Bible, from the Greek and Latin poets from
the writings of the'French and Italian Renaissance, from that mediaeval
literature which the learned held up to contempt La Morte D' Arthur, and
kindred romances, SirBevts, Guy of Warwick, and the rest— those feigned
books of chivalry wherein', says Ascham, 'a man by reading them should be
led to none other end but only to manslaughter and bawdry'—suggested
to Spenser much incident and inspired many a noble reflection. His art
is compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, but whilst
few artists have owed more to their predecessors, none has more indelibly
1 marked all that he touched with his own impress There is hardly an
incident that the keen-scented source hunter cannot track down to some
earlier writer, obvious or obscure ; but more astonishing than the extent
and diversity of Spenser's reading is his power to group in one harmonious
picture materials drawn from widely varying sources They harmonize
because nothing is left as it was found, but all that passes through his mind
is coloured by his imagination, and has caught the distinctive quality of
his personality. Distinctions of classical and romantic, ancient and modern,
sacred and profane, have no meaning for him. Where others distinguish,
he is only conscious of the unity of all that has arrested the human
imagination This eclectic method is pursued alike in the mam weaving
of his plot, in its incidental embellishment, in the similes and allusions
that enrich his style and drive home his imaginative conception The
story of Una and her knight opens with suggestions of Malory's Gareth