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Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for ''The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse, and is often considered one of the greatest poets in the English language. ==Life== Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552, though there is some ambiguity as to the exact date of his birth. As a young boy, he was educated in London at the Merchant Taylors' School and matriculated as a sizar at Pembroke College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he became a friend of Gabriel Harvey and later consulted him, despite their differing views on poetry. In 1578, he became for a short time secretary to John Young, Bishop of Rochester.〔Hadfield, Andrew. Edmund Spenser: A Life. Oxford University Press. 2012. p110〕 In 1579, he published ''The Shepheardes Calender'' and around the same time married his first wife, Machabyas Childe.〔Hadfield pp 128 & 140〕 They had two children, Sylvanus (d.1638) and Katherine.〔http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/edmund-spenser〕 In July 1580, Spenser went to Ireland in service of the newly appointed Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. Spenser served under Lord Gray with Walter Raleigh at the Siege of Smerwick massacre. When Lord Grey was recalled to England, Spenser stayed on in Ireland, having acquired other official posts and lands in the Munster Plantation. Raleigh acquired other nearby Munster estates confiscated in the Second Desmond Rebellion. Some time between 1587 and 1589, Spenser acquired his main estate at Kilcolman, near Doneraile in North Cork.〔Hadfield, pp200-01〕 He later bought a second holding to the south, at Rennie, on a rock overlooking the river Blackwater in North Cork. Its ruins are still visible today. A short distance away grew a tree, locally known as "Spenser's Oak" until it was destroyed in a lightning strike in the 1960s. Local legend has it that he penned some of ''The Faerie Queene'' under this tree.〔Hadfield, p362〕 In 1590, Spenser brought out the first three books of his most famous work, ''The Faerie Queene'', having travelled to London to publish and promote the work, with the likely assistance of Raleigh. He was successful enough to obtain a life pension of £50 a year from the Queen. He probably hoped to secure a place at court through his poetry, but his next significant publication boldly antagonised the queen's principal secretary, Lord Burghley (William Cecil), through its inclusion of the satirical ''Mother Hubberd's Tale''.〔Hadfield, p165〕 He returned to Ireland. By 1594, Spenser's first wife had died, and in that year he married Elizabeth Boyle, to whom he addressed the sonnet sequence ''Amoretti''. The marriage itself was celebrated in ''Epithalamion''.〔Hadfield, pp296, 301〕 They had a son named Peregrine.〔 In 1596, Spenser wrote a prose pamphlet titled ''A View of the Present State of Ireland''. This piece, in the form of a dialogue, circulated in manuscript, remaining unpublished until the mid-seventeenth century. It is probable that it was kept out of print during the author's lifetime because of its inflammatory content. The pamphlet argued that Ireland would never be totally 'pacified' by the English until its indigenous language and customs had been destroyed, if necessary by violence.〔Hadfield, pp 334–43, 365〕 In 1598, during the Nine Years War, Spenser was driven from his home by the native Irish forces of Aodh Ó Néill. His castle at Kilcolman was burned, and Ben Jonson, who may have had private information, asserted that one of his infant children died in the blaze.〔Hadfield, p 362〕 In the year after being driven from his home, 1599, Spenser travelled to London, where he died at the age of forty-six – "for want of bread", according to Ben Jonson, which is ironic considering Spenser's approving writing on the scorched-earth policy that caused famine in Ireland.〔http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?textsid=33213〕 His coffin was carried to his grave in Westminster Abbey by other poets, who threw many pens and pieces of poetry into his grave with many tears. His second wife survived him and remarried twice. His sister Sarah, who had accompanied him to Ireland, married into the Travers family, and her descendants were prominent landowners in Cork for centuries. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Edmund Spenser」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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