Edmund Spenser

A Life

Andrew Hadfield

• In the first biography of the poet for sixty years, Spenser emerges as a much more complex and combative figure than has often been assumed
• Shows that Spenser's writing was often deeply rooted in his own experience
• Fills in details of a whole series of networks in which Spenser lived and operated and shows that soldiers, administrators, publishers, and civil servants were as important to him as writers
• Explores how vital Spenser's Irish experience was in forming his literary imagination

Edmund Spenser

A Life

Andrew Hadfield

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Edmund Spenser

A Life

Andrew Hadfield

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Edmund Spenser

A Life

Andrew Hadfield

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Edmund Spenser

A Life

Andrew Hadfield

From Our Blog

The death of Edmund Spenser

By Andrew Hadfield Writing to his friend Dudley Carleton on 17 January 1599, the enthusiastic correspondent John Chamberlain (1553-1628) noted that 'Spencer, our principall poet, coming lately out of Ireland, died at Westminster on Satturday last.' Chamberlain's testimony confirms that Spenser died on 13 January. Chamberlain is a good recorder of court gossip and a barometer of what interested the upper echelons of London society.

Posted on January 13, 2013

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Edmund Spenser: 'Elizabeth's arse-kissing poet?'

Edmund Spenser's innovative poetic works have a central place in the canon of English literature. Yet he is remembered as a morally flawed, self-interested sycophant; complicit in England's ruthless colonisation of Ireland; in Karl Marx's words, 'Elizabeth's arse-kissing poet'-- a man on the make who aspired to be at court and who was prepared to exploit the Irish to get what he wanted.

Posted on July 5, 2012

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10 facts and conjectures about Edmund Spenser

By Andrew Hadfield A particular anxiety/curiosity of any author who undertakes a work of biography is whether they have discovered anything new about their subject. I'm not sure that I have any 'smoking gun' for Edmund Spenser (1554?-1599) that conclusively proves something that no one knew before, and there is no one single archival discovery that can be trumpeted as a particular triumph. But I think I have rearranged and rethought Spenser's life and its relationship to his work in some new ways. Here is a list of my top ten favourite Spenser facts and conjectures, some known, some less well known.

Posted on June 28, 2012

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