The Genius of Spenser transforms an Elizabethan love sonnet sequence into something delicate and personal with poems that are sometimes striking in their beauty. Despite Spenser's use of some antiquated words they prove to be relatively easy to read and this is because of Spenser's ear for melody and his skill in making the poems flow. For the most part they follow a logical development and end in a rhyming couplet that brings the poem to a natural end. Spenser developed his own rhyming scheme for his 14 lined sonnets which knits the poems together. In many ways they are more traditional than Shakespeare's sonnets and are less complex and for the most part avoid some of the knotty language that Shakespeare preferred.

Elizabethan love sonnet collections can be dreary things indeed, as by the 1590's they had quickly fallen into a pattern that owed far more to a style of writing than to any emotional content. They were seemingly based on ideas of courtly love, wedded to the example and template set down by the Italian poet Petrarch. They usually take the form of poems addressed to a woman with a fictitious name who is the love of the poets life; usually an unrequited love, hence the standard phrases and images of the love lorn speaker pleading his case to be accepted as a lover. Spenser, while drawing on the Petrarchan form using themes and imagery that would be familiar to readers, subtly changed the raison d'être of his collection.

Firstly he addressed his poems to Elizabeth: Elizabeth Boyle who became his wife in 1594 the year before the poems were published and so they became a tribute to her. This is not a sequence of poems where the love remains unrequited: about three quarters through the collection, there is a change of mood and in sonnet 64 they kiss and it is evident that Elizabeth has given her consent. The poems are sequenced so that the reader can follow the outcome of the poets courtship, this was not the case in other collections: usually the lady was already married or remained an etherial figure and the poets painful love affair continued in keeping them apart. Spenser's Amoretti can be seen as a denigration of the courtly love ideal that was a feature of previous collections, because although his courtship went through the usual pains of thankless striving for acceptance, it ended with a commitment to marriage and then a celebration of his success.

The traditional imagery used by Petrarch and his followers is used by Spenser, however he takes these images and exaggerates them to such an extent that they become almost a parody. This is particularly noticeable in the power of his lovers eyes: the withering looks that the lady gives her suitor alternates with her celestial gaze that has the power to attract everyone and everything:

Sonnet 36
Is there no meanes for me to purchace peace,
Or make agreement with her thrilling eyes;
But that their cruelty doth still increace,
And dayly more augment my miseryes?

Sonnet 16
One day as I unwarily did gaze
On those fayre eyes, my loves immortall light,
The whiles my stonisht hart stood in amaze,
Through sweet illusion of her lookes delight,
I mote perceive how, in her glauncing sight,
Legions of Loves with little wings did fly,
Darting their deadly arrows, fyry bright,
At every rash beholder passing by,

The exaggeration used becomes almost comic. We have no idea how his contemporary Elizabethan readers would have interpreted the sonnets, but reading them today the poet seems to be laughing at himself as well as his intended:

Sonnet 54
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my merth, nor rues my smart:
But when I laugh, she mocks; and when I cry,
She laughs, and hardens evermore her hart.
What then can move her? If nor merth, nor mone,
She is no woman, but a sencelesse stone.

Spenser certainly praises the beauty of his beloved in typical male gaze fashion, but he emphasises that it is her wit and mind that he values above all else and that will make for a lasting happy relationship:

Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it,
For that your selfe ye daily such doe see:
But the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit
And vertuous mind, is much more praysd of me.
For all the rest, how ever fayre it be,
Shall turne to nought and lose that glorious hew;

Elizabethan sonneteers tended to link the idea of an unrequited love to somehow making them better men because of the pain that they suffer. They in typical courtier fashion learn go the extra mile in all the things that they do to impress their beloved. Spenser was not a typical courtier although of course he relied on his reputation as a poet and a gentleman to secure positions in government. He found himself almost in exile in Ireland, unable to secure a position at court. His courtship of Elizabeth was in keeping with traditional protestant virtues and therefore successful in leading to matrimony and much has been made of the links between the sonnets and the religious calendar.

There are 89 sonnets in this collection and sonnet 64 acts like a turn in the whole collection because at this point the relationship changes; It starts with "Coming to kiss her lyps, (such grace I found)'', there had been no evidence of physical contact before this point. Now it is the poet who is in control of the situation and his beloved accepts her situation, but not without fears of losing her liberty sonnet 65 addresses this beautifully:

The doubt which ye misdeeme, fayre Love, is vaine,
That fondly feare to lose your liberty,
When, losing one, two liberties ye gayne,
And make him bond that bondage earst did fly.
Sweet be the bands the which true love doth tye,
Without constraynt or dread of any ill:
The gentle birde feeles no captivity
Within her cage, but sings, and feeds her fill.

The poems now are a celebration and a triumph and include the sonnets that appear most in various anthologies, however the last four sonnets end the collection on a downbeat note. Sonnet 86 is an angry poem addressed to a slanderous accusation and the last three sonnets deal with a temporary separation and the pain it brings to both of them. I found great pleasure in reading these poems and because of their musicality and their accessibility I rank them together with Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sidney's collections and a 5 star read. Difficult to choose one of the sonnets to close this appreciation, but I do like sonnet 71:

I ioy to see how, in your drawen work,
Your selfe unto the Bee ye doe compare,
And me unto the Spyder, that doth lurke
In close awayt, to catch her unaware.
Right so your selfe were caught in cunning snare
Of a deare foe, and thralled to his love;
In whose streight bands ye now captived are
So firmely, that ye never may remove.
But as your worke is woven all about
With woodbynd flowers and fragrant eglantine,
So sweet your prison you in time shall prove,
With many deare delights bedecked fyne:
And all thensforth eternall peace shall see
Betweene the Spyder and the gentle Bee.

Epithalamion
Linking Amoretti with the bridal poem Epithalamion are several stanzas telling a mildly erotic story of Cupid and a bee. Epithalamion has 24 stanzas one for each hour of the wedding day. They describe the happy couples delight in all of the arrangements for a perfect wedding day. It is a joyous celebration with each stanza averaging 18 lines fitted to a rhyming scheme. The final stanza has 7 lines which forms a conclusion. The poem hopes for the blessing of children, fidelity and all things good in the marriage. Perhaps he envisioned it not only as a celebration of his marriage, but a poem that could be used to celebrate other marriages. ( )

LB-5

The amoretti are rather conventional sonnets, but the epithalamium welcomes marriage with healthy humor and enthusiasm.
I recall hearing my teacher read it with a comic Irish accent ( )