ABSTRACT

The “mature” Spenser whom I propose to consider within the spectrum of English social and political thought is the man of no more than forty-four years who, in 1596, had overseen the publication of the only six books of The Faerie Queene that he would ever complete, and who in that same year, or in the months preceding it, sat down to compose A Viewe o f the Present State o f Ireland. We will be comparing him with the Edmund Spenser who appears as a character in Ludowick Bryskett’s A Discourse o f Civill Life, probably completed in 1584, and also with the actual Edmund Spenser who, in 1590, published the first three of a projected twelve (or twenty-four) books of The Faerie Queene, and whose status as a major epic poet was then signaled by his reception at court. This comparison is justified because much scholarship on Spenser has identified sharp differences between a younger humane person and an older sour man, embittered by the disappointments of his life. Attention will be devoted to Spenser’s social and political priorities because these have not been systematically examined by previous scholars even though Spenser identified himself as a moral guide and decided to become a poet only because verse provided him with the best vehicle for his moral purpose.