Spencer, Edmund - Life

Edmund Spenser was born in London in 1552. He received an excellent education atMerchant Taylors ' School in London, and also at Pembroke College in Cambridge. In 1594 Spenser married Elizabeth Boyle and honoring his wife wrote many love sonnets. Like other followers of the idea of the British Empire, Spenser fell in disfavori and died in poverty in 1599. He was buried beside his favourite writer. Chaucer, at Westminster Abbey. Among the works we have "The amoretti" and "Epithalamion" that are somehow related to the course of courtship of the poet to Elizabeth Boyle, heemphasizes both physical and spiritual beauty. The most famous work of Spenser'sThe Faerie Queene, an allegorical novel incomplete centered on fictional Queen Gloriana. In the poem the Queen sends 12 of his knights in various adventures. The themes of the poem were temperance, chastity, friendship, justice, courtesy and chivalry.

"One day I Wrote Her Name" is taken from the series of sonnets Amoretti. What is special in sonnets by Spenser is that worship of the poet to his beloved does not lead to despair but to reconciliation and marriage. Like Petrarch's Laura, Spenser is a woman beautiful and virtuous but unlike Laura Spenser's woman is also accessible. In the subsequent sonnets there is a strong sense of understanding between the two lovers. "One day I Wrote Her Name" is also a reflection on the possibility of the poetto achieve immortality through his art. At the beginning of the opera, Spenser recounts his efforts to write the name of his beloved on the beach. Though the waves come and delete the name. Spenser used a distinct form of verse called "Spenserian", which consists of 8 verses of 10 syllables plus a ninth of 12 syllables.