Edmund Spenser: A Critical Study, Volume 1University of California Press, 1917 - 478 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
admiration adventures allegory Amoret Ariosto Artegall Arthur Augustan beast beauty Belphoebe Britomart Burghley canto century Chaucer Colin court critics death delight divine doth dream Dryden Duessa eclogues Edmund Spenser Edward Dowden Elizabeth Elizabethan England English epic episode essay eyes Faërie Faerie Queene faire Fairy fancy fayre feare Florimell flowres gentle goodly grace Guyon hand hath heaven heavenly hero hight Hymnes ideals imitation lady Leicester literary Lord Lord Grey lovers Milton modern mood moral Mother Hubberds Tale Muses Mutabilitie never noble Orlando Furioso passion pastoral Petrarch poem poet poet's poetry praise Professor Greenlaw Puritan reader Red Cross Knight renaissance romantic romanticism romanticists satire seems selfe Shepheards Calender Sidney sing song sonnets Spen Spenser Spenserian Spenserian stanza spirit stanza strange sweet Tasso thee Theocritus things thou thought turn unto verse Virgil vision Warton words wrote youth
Popular passages
Page 33 - Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights and live laborious days ; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life.
Page 37 - He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.
Page 55 - In that Faery Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery land.
Page 142 - I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised, and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
Page 251 - That al the woods should answer, and your echo ring. Open the temple gates unto my love, Open them wide that she may enter in. And all the...
Page 37 - Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep ! He hath awakened from the dream of life. 'Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings.
Page 353 - Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend The wondrous architecture of the world, And measure every wandering planet's course, Still climbing after knowledge infinite, And always moving as the restless spheres, Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest, Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, That perfect bliss and sole felicity, The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.
Page 37 - Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings. We decay Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.
Page 251 - There dwels sweet Love, and constant Chastity, Unspotted Fayth, and comely Womanhood, Regard of Honour, and mild Modesty; There Vertue raynes as queene in royal throne, And giveth lawes alone, The which the base affections doe obay, And yeeld theyr services unto her will; Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may Thereto approch to tempt her mind to ill. Had ye once scene these her celestial threasures, And unrevealed pleasures, Then would ye wonder, and her prayses sing, That al the woods should answer,...
Page 432 - A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was: Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye ; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer sky...