The Shepheardes Calender

Last updated

The Shepheardes Calender
Shepheardes Calender Title Page.jpg
Title page of The Shepheardes Calendar, circa 1571.
Author Edmund Spenser
Country Kingdom of England
Language Early Modern English
Genre Eclogue
Publication date
1579

The Shepheardes Calender (originally titled The Shepheardes Calendar, Conteyning twelve Aeglogues proportionable to the Twelve monthes. Entitled to the Noble and Vertuous Gentleman most worthy of all titles both of learning and chevalrie M. Philip Sidney) [1] was Edmund Spenser's first major poetic work, published in 1579. In emulation of Virgil's first work, the Eclogues , Spenser wrote this series of pastorals at the commencement of his career. However, Spenser's models were rather the Renaissance eclogues of Mantuanus. [2] The title, like the entire work, is written using deliberately archaic spellings, in order to suggest a connection to medieval literature, and to Geoffrey Chaucer in particular. [3] Spenser dedicated the poem to Philip Sidney. The poem introduces Colin Clout, a folk character originated by John Skelton, and depicts his life as a shepherd through the twelve months of the year. The Calender encompasses considerable formal innovations, anticipating the even more virtuosic Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (The "Old" Arcadia, 1580), the classic pastoral romance by Sir Philip Sidney, with whom Spenser was acquainted. It is also remarkable for the extensive commentary or gloss included with the work in its first publication, ascribed to an "E.K." E.K. is an intelligent, very subtle, sometimes wrong, and often deeply ironic commentator, who is sometimes assumed to be an alias of Spenser himself. The term sarcasm (Sarcasmus) is first recorded in English in Spenser's poem (October). [4]

Contents

Interpretation

The twelve eclogues of The Shepheardes Calender, dealing with such themes as the abuses of the church, Colin's shattered love for Rosalind, praise for Queen Elizabeth, and encomia to the rustic Shepherd's life, are titled for the months of the year. Each eclogue is preceded by a woodcut and followed by a motto describing the speaker. The opening line of each eclogue expresses characteristics of the month, and the poem as a whole charts common accuracy of the seasons, the toil and celebrations of the village year. The precision of the description of birds, flowers, and harvests is balanced by an underlying theme of the hardships and rituals that each season entails. Each pastoral in the poem can be classified into one of three categories, identified as moral, plaintive, or re-creative.[ citation needed ]

The first page of the Aprill Eclogue Aprill, from the Shepheardes Calender.jpg
The first page of the Aprill Eclogue

The plaintive and re-creative poems are each devoted to presenting Colin Clout in his double character of lover and poet, whereas the moral poems are mixed with mocking bitterness, which moves Colin from a dramatic personae to a more homely style. While the January pastoral tells of the unhappy love of Colin for Rosalind, the springtime of April calls for a song in praise of Elizabeth. In May, the shepherds, who are rival pastors of the Reformation, end their sermons with an animal fable. In summer, they discourse on Puritan theology. October brings them to contemplate the trials and disappointments of a poet, and the series ends with a parable comparing life to the four seasons of the year.[ citation needed ]

Form and style

The Shepheardes Calender is a poem that consists of twelve eclogues. Each eclogue is named after a different month, which represents the turning of seasons. An eclogue is a short pastoral poem that is in the form of a dialogue or soliloquy. This is why, while the months come together to form a whole year, each month can also stand alone as a separate poem. The months are all written in a different form. For example, April has a lyrical "laye" which honors the Queen. May gives off characterization and greater description. As the reader passes through each month and gets closer to the end of the year, the wording becomes less beautifully lyrical and more straightforward; closing together the poem the way the month of December closes up the year. Spenser uses rhyme differently in each month. There is a very cyclical pattern that shows off the kind of style that Spenser was going for, making the reader feel as though they are going through the cycle of each year just as the narrator does. The months all have repetition of elements and arguments. The style of the poem is also influenced by writers such as Chaucer and Skelton.[ citation needed ]

Influence

Edmund Spenser's involvement with the Earl of Leicester set the groundwork for the influential effect that The Shepheardes Calender would have. A year after working together, the two of them, joined by Sir Philip Sidney, Edward Dyer, and Fulke Greville, created the literary group called "Areopagus". The group they formed supported Leicester's views on religion and politics (Bear). When The Shepheardes Calender, which was Spenser's first ever published piece, was published it was around the same time that Leicester proposed marriage between the Queen and the Duc d'Alençon. [5]

The poem served as a type of propaganda to the proposal. Spenser recognized that the poem was for his own financial and political gains, but it also sets the idea of standing behind one's work. The work was a success; between 1579 and 1597 five editions were published. [6] One thing that separates the poem from others of its time is Spenser's use of allegory and his dependence on the idea of antiquity. The poem also set the groundwork for Spenser's best known work The Faerie Queene . The Shepheardes Calender was also crucial to the naturalization of the English language and the introduction of vocabulary along with literary techniques.[ citation needed ]

The Irish composer Ina Boyle first drafted her Colin Clout, "a pastoral for orchestra for orchestra after the first aeglogue of Spenser's Shepheard's Calender", in 1921 and revised it in 1923. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund Spenser</span> English poet (1552–1599)

Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse, and he is considered one of the great poets in the English language.

<i>The Faerie Queene</i> English epic poem by Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books I–III were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IV–VI. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 stanzas, it is one of the longest poems in the English language; it is also the work in which Spenser invented the verse form known as the Spenserian stanza. On a literal level, the poem follows several knights as a means to examine different virtues, and though the text is primarily an allegorical work, it can be read on several levels of allegory, including as praise of Queen Elizabeth I. In Spenser's "Letter of the Authors", he states that the entire epic poem is "cloudily enwrapped in Allegorical devices", and that the aim of publishing The Faerie Queene was to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline".

Tityrus may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Sidney</span> English poet, courtier, and diplomat (1554-1586)

Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier, scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. His works include a sonnet sequence, Astrophel and Stella, a treatise, The Defence of Poesy and a pastoral romance, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.

Richard Barnfield was an English poet. His obscure though close relationship with William Shakespeare has long made him interesting to scholars. It has been suggested that he was the "rival poet" mentioned in Shakespeare's sonnets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pastoral</span> Literary, art, and music genre that takes its name from the lifestyle of shepherds herding livestock

The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target audience is typically an urban one. A pastoral is a work of this genre. A piece of music in the genre is usually referred to as a pastorale.

An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics. The term is also used for a musical genre thought of as evoking a pastoral scene.

Abraham Fraunce was an English poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambrose Philips</span> 17th/18th-century English poet and politician

Ambrose Philips was an English poet and politician. He feuded with other poets of his time, resulting in Henry Carey bestowing the nickname "Namby-Pamby" upon him, which came to mean affected, weak, and maudlin speech or verse.

Rosalind or Rosalinde may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Sidney</span> English poet, playwright and patron (1561–1621)

Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke was among the first Englishwomen to gain notice for her poetry and her literary patronage. By the age of 39, she was listed with her brother Philip Sidney and with Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare among the notable authors of the day in John Bodenham's verse miscellany Belvidere. Her play Antonius is widely seen as reviving interest in soliloquy based on classical models and as a likely source of Samuel Daniel's closet drama Cleopatra (1594) and of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (1607). She was also known for translating Petrarch's "Triumph of Death", for the poetry anthology Triumphs, and above all for a lyrical, metrical translation of the Psalms.

A recusatio is a poem in which the poet says he is supposedly unable or disinclined to write the type of poem which he originally intended to, and instead writes in a different style.

The Piers Plowman tradition is made up of about 14 different poetic and prose works from about the time of John Ball and the Peasants Revolt of 1381 through the reign of Elizabeth I and beyond. All the works feature one or more characters, typically Piers, from William Langland's poem Piers Plowman. Because the Plowman appears in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer but does not have his own tale, plowman tales are sometimes used as additions to The Canterbury Tales, or otherwise conflated or associated with Chaucer.

The Areopagus is a proposed 16th-century society or club dedicated to the reformation of English poetry. The club may have involved figures such as Edmund Spenser, Gabriel Harvey, Edward Dyer and Sir Phillip Sidney. The existence of the Areopagus as a formal society was first noted by Henry Richard Fox Bourne in 1862 in his Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney. There is no direct evidence that the group was more than an idea found in the correspondence between Spenser and Harvey, and if it existed its membership is uncertain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baptista Mantuanus</span> Italian Carmelite reformer, humanist, and poet

Baptista Spagnuoli Mantuanus, O.Carm was an Italian Carmelite reformer, humanist, and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corydon (character)</span> Stock name for a herdsman in ancient Greek pastoral poems and fables

Corydon is a stock name for a herdsman in ancient Greek pastoral poems and fables, and in much later European literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shepherd</span> Person who tends, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep

A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherd derives from Old English sceaphierde. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, it exists in all parts of the globe, and it is an important part of pastoralist animal husbandry.

<i>Colin Clouts Come Home Againe</i> 1595 poem by Edmund Spenser

Colin Clouts Come Home Againe is a pastoral poem by the English poet Edmund Spenser and published in 1595. It has been the focus of little critical attention in comparison with the poet's other works such as The Faerie Queene, yet it has been called the "greatest pastoral eclogue in the English language". In a tradition going back to Petrarch, the pastoral eclogue contains a dialogue between shepherds with a narrative or song as an inset, and which also can conceal allegories of a political or ecclesiastical nature.

Theodore Bathurst, also known as Theophilus Bathurst was an English poet and translator who wrote in the Latin language. His most notable work is Calendarium Pastorale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astrophel (Edmund Spenser)</span>

Astrophel: A Pastorall Elegy upon the Death of the Most Noble and Valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney is a poem by the English poet Edmund Spenser. It is Spenser's tribute to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney, who had died in 1586, and was dedicated "To the most beautiful and vertuous Ladie, the Countesse of Essex", Frances Walsingham, Sidney's widow.

References

  1. Daiches, David (1960). A critical history of English literature. Internet Archive (3rd ed.). New York, Ronald Press Co. p. 166.
  2. Hughes, Merritt Yerkes (1929). Virgil and Spenser. Vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California Press.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  3. Johnson, Lynn Staley (2010). The Shepheardes Calender: An Introduction. University Park: Penn State Press. p. 63. ISBN   978-0271041001.
  4. Edmund Spenser (May 1996). Risa Stephanie Bearm (ed.). "Shepheardes Calender". Renascence Editions. University of Oregon via luminarium.org.
  5. R. S. Bear, Introduction to The Shepheardes Calender
  6. Edmund Spenser (1890). Heinrich Oskar Sommer (ed.). The Shepheardes Calender. London: John C. Nimmo. pp. 11–13.
  7. Trinity College, Dublin

Further reading

Translations