Edmund Spenser Research Paper

While perhaps not as well known as the great William Shakespeare, the English Renaissance author, Edmund Spenser, was influential in more ways than one. The Renaissance was a time of discovery and economic and artistic blossoming. After a challenging time, England was finally beginning to thrive. However, the creative influence of the Renaissance did not seem to reach them. While other countries, such as Italy, were growing artistically, England lacked the motivation and creative minds necessary to make change. But, once Edmund Spenser’s works began to be publicized, his ideas sparked change in more ways than one. Edmund Spenser not only influenced authors of his era with his new writing, but also helped spread Renaissance beliefs such as monarchism, Protestantism, rationalism, and anti-Catholicism.

In the sixteenth century, writing was flourishing everywhere except for England. According to a literary critic of the era, Sir Philip Sidney, England brought forth “poet-apes” (Slosek). At last, a new poet named Edmund Spenser emerged. Spenser hoped to bring back the literary excellence of the enamoured Homer and Virgil. Sadly, at first the public did not favor Spenser’s poetry as they felt it was too similar to Virgil’s works. Spenser also daringly compared his own works to the great ancient epic writers, which made many people perceive him as delusional and full of bravado (Slosek). After many years of criticism, Spenser’s poems were applauded and given credit for paving the way for the great poets of the seventeenth