Page images
PDF
EPUB

HAZLITT ON SPENSER

PAGE 2. I. See p. 141.

3. Faerie Queene, 1. iv. 22.

7-15. F. Q. I. vii. 32. Imitated by Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Pt. II, IV. iv. 217-22, published in the same year.

12. Selinis, a mountain in Sicily; a city of the same name. Virgil, Aen. iii. 705:

Teque datis linquo ventis, palmosa Selinus.

28. and mask, &c. L'Allegro, 128.

32-6. F. Q. I. i. 41.

PAGE 3. 5. the honey-heavy dew of slumber. Julius Caesar, II. i. 230.

9–26. F. Q. 11. xii. 70-1. These two stanzas are based on Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata XVI. The two following are all but a literal translation of Tasso's stanzas 14-15.

PAGE 4. 9. crime. Passion, presumably; but loosely used. II. House of Pride. F. Q. I. iv. 2-15.

Cave of Mammon. See pp. 124-8.

12. Cave of Despair. F.Q. 1. ix. 33–54.

Memory. See p. 131.

16. Belphabe. F. Q. II. iii. 21–31.

Florimel and the Witch's son. F. Q. III. vii. 12-21.

17. Gardens of Adonis. See Pp. 131-5. Bower of Bliss. F. Q. II. xii. 42-80. stanzas from this passage, supra.

18. Mask of Cupid. See pp. 135-42. Colin Clout's vision. See pp. 162-8.

last complete book, Book VI.

Hazlitt quotes four

The last book, i.e. the

28. Poussin. Nicholas Poussin (1594–1665), sometimes called the head of the French school of painting.

34-7. F. Q. III. ix. 20.

PAGE 5. 6-8. F. Q. II. iii. 30.

9-13. F. Q. III. viii. 30-5. The quotation is from st. 35. 16-17. F. Q. IV. xi. 23-4.

18. The Procession of the Passions. F. Q. 1. iv. 18–36. The quotation is from stanzas 21-2.

PAGE 6. 2-4. Southey, The Lay of the Laureate (1816), 106–8. 14. Rubens. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), the head of the Flemish school of painting.

15. Satyrane. F. Q. 1. vi. 23-9.

25. F. Q. III. X. 47.

PAGE 7. 5. change of Malbecco. F. Q. III. x. 56–60.

29. Talus. F. Q. v. See pp. 154-61.

30. Pastorella. F. Q. VI. ix-xii. 22.

PAGE 8. 2 ff. But Spenser formed his diction in his early

poems, before he invented the stanza, which is a development of Chaucerian Rhyme Royal rather than of the Italian ottava rima, as Hazlitt states.

19-20. in many a winding bout, &c. L'Allegro, 139–40.

COLERIDGE ON SPENSER

PAGE 9. 10. yew tree in Lorton vale. Wordsworth, Yew-Trees: There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale . . .

13. tree of Malabar, the banyan.

1100-10.

PAGE 11. 6, 7. F. Q. 1. iii. 3.

See Paradise Lost, ix.

8-12. F. Q. I. v. 33.

15. F. Q. I. iii. 5.

16. F. Q. 1. iii. 8.

17. F. Q. I. iii. 4.

PAGE 13. 27. experiment, experience, knowledge.

LEIGH HUNT ON SPENSER

PAGE 15. 27. Make heaven drowsy, &c. Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. 345.

PAGE 17. 7. Somers. John, Lord Somers (1651-1716), Lord Chancellor, 1697-1700. See the Dedication to him of Hughes's edition of Spenser, 1715.

Chatham. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708–78), Prime Minister. His sister said the only thing he knew thoroughly was The Faerie Queene.

E. K.'s INTRODUCTION

An Edward Kirke (1553–1613) was Spenser's junior by two years at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. The Introduction is in the form of an Epistle dedicating his Glossary to Gabriel Harvey (1545?-1630), Fellow of Pembroke, 1570.

PAGE 18. I. Uncouthe, unkiste. Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, i. 809:

Unknowe, unkist, and lost that is unsought.

5. In his Eglogue. February, 92 and gloss; June, 81 and gloss. PAGE 19. 1. that worthy Oratour. Antonius, in Cicero, de Oratore, ii. 14. 60. 14. Valla.

Lorenzo Valla (1407-57), Italian humanist. 15. other. Sir John Cheke (1514-57). See Ascham, Scholemaster, ed. Arber, pp. 154-9, and Cheke's letter prefixed to Hoby's Courtier. With E. K.'s opinion cf. Courtier, ed. Raleigh, p. 65, and Du Bellay, Deffence et Illustration, 11. vi. 23. Tullie. See de Oratore, iii. 38; Orator, 50. 169.

PAGE 20. 8. Alceus. Cicero, de Natura Deorum, i. 28, 79. 32. Evanders mother. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, i. 10. 2. Perhaps E. K. hints at Thomas Wilson, who quotes the anecdote related by Gellius with approval, in his Arte of Rhetorique, 1553 (ed. G. H. Mair, p. 3).

PAGE 21. 34. Os rabidum, &c. Virgil, Aeneid vi. 80.
PAGE 22. 5. Of Muses, &c. June, 65.

6. Enough is me, &c. Ibid. 79.

21. Mantuane. Baptista Spanuolo (1448–1516), called, from his birthplace, Mantuanus; Vicar-General of the Carmelites in Mantua. His Eclogues were widely used in schools, and were Spenser's principal source in The Shepheardes Calender.

22, 23. Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Sannazaro (1458-1530) all wrote Latin Eclogues; Sannazaro also wrote the Italian pastoral romance, Arcadia. Clément Marot (1497-1544) wrote pastorals in French, of which Spenser imitated two in November and December.

34. .S., scilicet.

PAGE 23. 4. an olde name. The Calendar of Shepheards was a common almanac containing useful information for country. men, translated from the French Kalendrier des Bergers.

21. Dreames, &c. These early poems are lost, or were perhaps incorporated into later work.

BARNFIELD'S SONNET

This sonnet appears also in The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599, a piratical miscellany attributed to Shakespeare by the publisher. PAGE 24. 23. Dowland. John Dowland (1563-1626), composer of songs, and the greatest lutenist of his time.

THE RETURNE FROM PARNASSUS

From Part II, Act 1, Sc. ii of this University skit, written for New Year festivities at St. John's College, Cambridge, c. 1601. PAGE 25. 8. then ever song in Poe. Referring to Virgil and Mantuanus, natives of Mantua, and Ariosto, of Ferrara, both cities being near the river Po.

BEN JONSON

PAGE 28. 13. As Virgil read Ennius. Donatus, Life of Virgil: 'Cum is aliquando Ennium in manu haberet, rogareturque quidnam faceret, respondit se aurum colligere de stercore Ennii.'

PAGE 32.

THE SHEPHEARDES CALENDER
April

Panegyric is a recognized phase of pastoral poetry, but nothing had prepared England for the lyrical swiftness of this song in praise of Queen Elizabeth. The quatrains linked

together by rhyme are of Marot's devising, but the song reminds one rather of the Odes of Ronsard; the freshness and mastery of both metre and style make it a landmark-and one early recognized-in English poetry. Spenser's artificial imposition of archaic and learned terms, and words from various dialects, upon a basis of common educated speech is easily

detected in this poem: an artifice in keeping with the blending of courtly compliment and decorous' pastoral simplicity. Argument. Hobbinol. Gabriel Harvey, according to the

Gloss to September.

PAGE 33. 6. quenching, i.e. the year, which quenches . .

35. laye. The rhyming of identical sounds ('rime equivoque') is frequent in Chaucer, and considered a beauty by the earlier French poets.

73-81. A commonplace of Renaissance love-poetry. Cf. Ronsard, Amours, 1. xciv; Petrarch, Sonnet lxxix in Vita di Madonna Laura.

91-4. Cf. Ronsard, Amours 1. cxxxvii.

113-17. Cf. Faerie Queene, VI. X. 12 and 25.

135. tawdrie has degenerated in meaning, like lewdly (foolishly; O.E. lawede, lay, unlearned) in line 157.

136-44. Cf. Marot, Complainct de Madame Loyse de Savove (which Spenser imitated in November), 229–36:

Portez rameaulx parvenuz à croissance :
Laurier, lyerre et lys blancs honorez,
Romarin vert, roses en abondance,

Jaune soucie et bassinetz dorez,

Passeveloux de pourpre colorez,

Lavande franche, oeilletz de couleur vive,
Aubepins blancs, aubepins azurez,

Et toutes fleurs de grand' beauté nayfve.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

143. Chevisaunce. Unidentified. In Chaucer the word means borrowing'; in F. Q. II. ix. 8, &c., knightly enterprise', by confusion with chevauchée. Probably Spenser did not mean any specific flower: had he in mind the Chrysanthus of Virgil, Culex, 405?

Emblem. Virgil, Aeneid i. 327-8.

181-2. In Sept., 176, Colin is mentioned as the 'boy' of 'Roffyn', i.e. of John Young, Bishop of Rochester, and former Master of Spenser's College. Spenser was his secretary in 1578. As lythe, &c. February, 74.

185. Many efforts have been made to solve this anagram, but no convincing identification of the lady has yet appeared. 186. glenne. Spenser means 'valley', however. III. vii. 6.

203. frenne. O.E. fremde. 220. Helicon. not to the well. of Fame, 522.

See F. Q.

Correct explanation, but false etymology;

The name was applied to the mountain only,
The confusion occurs in Chaucer, e.g. Hous

228-9. Hesiodus. Not in Hesiod. (See Mustard, E.K.'s Classical Allusions, Modern Language Notes, April, 1919.)

241-2. Homeres saying. Iliad ii. 196–7: For proud is the spirit of god-cherished kings: for their honour is of Zeus, and Zeus the Counsellor loves them.'

248. in some place Christ himselfe. May, 54; July, 49. 269-72. Virgile. E.K. quotes a verse mnemonic of the names and functions of the Muses, printed in some early editions of Virgil, e.g. that of Colinaeus, Paris, 1526.

280. Petrarch. Sonnet ccv in Vita, in Marsand's edition. 283. the Graces. See F. Q. VI. X. 21–4.

291. Boccace. Boccaccio, in his classical dictionary, de Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, v. xxxv.

[ocr errors]

300. Ladyes of the lake. Probably a reference to Queen Elizabeth's entertainment by Leicester at Kenilworth in 1575, as reported by Robert Laneham, Letter, ed. Furnivall, pp. 6-7: 'Her highnes. rode unto the inner gate. where the Lady of the Lake (famous in King Arthurz book) with too Nymphes wayting uppon her. she, floting to land, met her Maiesty with a well penned meter and matter.' Gascoigne's Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth.

See also

333. forswonck and forswatt. From the pseudo-Chaucerian Plowman's Tale, Prologue, 1. 14:

PAGE 43.

He was forswonke and all forswat.

[ocr errors]

October

This Eclogue is an imitation, as E.K. hints, of Mantuan's Fifth Eclogue, and an improvement on its original; for the speeches of Mantuan's' Candidus' are practically a demand to be paid for his poetry, and a complaint against the avarice of the times and of his interlocutor, Silvanus'. The lament over the degeneracy of the noble orders occupies only a small part of Mantuan's poem, and there is no counter-part of the more exalted thought of lines 79-118, in which appear some of Spenser's later motives.

Argument. See Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie. The belief in the divine origin of poetry, originally derived from Plato (Phaedrus; Ion), was most current among Renaissance critics and poets, and a favourite doctrine with the' Pléiade'. the English Poet, lost, unfortunately.

1-6. Mantuan, v. 1–5:

Candide, nobiscum pecudes aliquando solebas
pascere et his gelidis calamos inflare sub umbris
et miscere sales simul et certare palaestra ;
nunc autem quasi pastores et rura perosus
pascua sopito fugis et trahis otia cantu.

5. bydding base. Prisoner's base.

11-12. An example of imitation by reversal; Spenser quotes the Grasshopper for Mantuan's Ant, 36–7:

En formica, brevis sed provida bestia, condit
in brumam nova farra cavis aestate latebris.

« PreviousContinue »