ABSTRACT
For the purpose of this article, a neologism is any linguistic feature, morphological, lexical, or whatever, which, on the available evidence, would have seemed linguistically ‘marked’ to Spenser’s contemporaries, even though the feature in question may have been of a familiar type, conforming (eg) to contemporary rhetorical practice. The Elizabethan period was one of intense and exciting experimentation with language, especially in forming new words; and Spenser was, in his way, as innovative as Shakespeare. He was the first major English poet after Chaucer to be essentially literary, addressing The Faerie Queene largely to an audience that would not recite but read. This accounts for certain differences between his neologisms and Shakespeare’s, though there are many similarities.
