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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
In an interesting article on the Shepheards Calender, Professor Greenlaw has argued that “outside of a small circle even the authorship of the Shepheards Calender was unknown for a considerable time after its publication, and that the work itself attracted no great attention until the popularity of the Faerie Queene made the earlier poems of the author important” (p. 423). He further speaks of the praise which Sidney bestowed upon the Calender as “singularly cold” (p. 420) and explains the fact on the basis of his theory that Spenser, as well as Sidney and Leicester, was in disgrace at the time of the Alençon negotiations, so that “it would not have been politic for Sidney to praise too highly a work under suspicion in itself and written by a man whom it had been found expedient to send out of the country” (p. 450).
1 Publications of the Modern Language Association, xxvi, 3, September, 1911.
1 I have not wanted to enter into the question of how far Spenser engaged in political satire in Mother Hubberds Tale and the Shepheards Calender, but I believe that there is at least reasonable doubt whether he took so active a part in politics as Professor Greenlaw assumes. The question is largely one of the relative weight to be attached to Spenser's denial and to the incriminating evidence. Spenser's own claim was that his work had been misinterpreted. At the end of Book VI of the Faerie Queene, he declares that he has been slandered and brought into the ill graces of a great man, no doubt Burghley. In the dedication to Colin Clout, he repeats the charge that he has been slandered. Probably the sonnet written to Leicester and published at the beginning of Virgils Gnat, in which Spenser declares that he has been wronged, refers to the same trouble. If so, it is a statement that he suffered for the supposed satire, but unjustly. What we know of Spenser seems to indicate that he was sincere and highminded, and we have sufficient evidence that literary men were often the victims of informers, who read more personal and political satire into their works than was intended by the authors. The most damaging evidence against Spenser, as Nashe was careful to point out, is Harvey's statement that Spenser went too far in the satire of Mother Hubberds Tale. But Nashe declared his own belief that informers had slandered Spenser, and even Harvey merely says that the invective was too bitter, not that there was any personal or political satire. The later references to a “Tale of Mother Hubburd” and its satire in T. M.'s Ant and Nightingale and Black Book, J. P. Collier argues may possibly be to imitations of Spenser's work, as the details suggested do not fit the published Mother Hubberds Tale of Spenser (Bibliographical Catalogue, i, p. 539 and ii, pp. 326-7). Against this stands Scott's specific reference in Philomythie (1616) to Spenser's guilt in Mother Hubberds Tale. Are we to assume that, though conscious of guilt, Spenser felt driven to plead innocence of political satire? He apparently did satirize one living ecclesiastic in the Shepheards Calender, and there is much in Mother Hubberds Tale, as Professor Greenlaw points out—his argument in regard to an extensive scheme of satire in the Calender does not impress me—that indicates so strong a coloring from conditions existing in England around 1579 as to suggest political satire of a pointed kind. Still I believe we can say with certainty only that Spenser had some trouble on account of Mother Hubberds Tale, especially with Burghley. With what justice he may have been accused of attempting through his early satire to influence definitely the course of political events may never be determined.
1 Spenser uses his given name, Edmundus, in the Latin verse sent to Harvey, Oct., 1579.
1 Harvey's statement in the same connection that on account of the scorn of all things English men had better be silent than attempt to purchase credit by writing in English and rhyme (p. 67) is in accord with the general attitude at the time, and his own discontinuance of poetry vouches for his sincerity.
1 References to the disregard of learning and poetry and the discontinuance of patronage might be indefinitely multiplied from the works of such notable writers as Lodge, Nashe, and Jonson. In the preface to Volpone Jonson expresses his desire to “raise the despised head of poetry again.”
1 Cf. Grosart, Works of Spenser, i, p. 454.
1 Cf. G. Smith, Eliz. Crit. Essays, i, pp. 232, 242, 245.
1 The same thing is implied by Spenser himself in the sonnet to Sackville among the dedicatory sonnets published at the beginning of the Faerie Queene, 1590:
1 Early in his career Spenser certainly considered Harvey an ardent admirer (cf. Shep. Cal., December, ll. 45 ff.), and Harvey does praise Spenser's work, but he does not encourage him to continue poetry.
1 It is elsewhere that Sidney expresses his enthusiasm for “the old songe of Percy and Duglas.”
2 One puzzling phase of the relationship between Sidney and Spenser is that of Sidney's patronage. Sidney was a formal patron of Spenser when the Shepheards Calender appeared, and the dedication to him was probably with his consent. Spenser speaks of Sidney as his patron in the dedication of the Ruines of Time to the Countess of Pembroke and in a sonnet to her at the beginning of the Faerie Queene. The commendatory verses of W. L. prefixed to the Faerie Queene comment on Sidney's encouragement of Spenser in poetry and his approval of the Shepheards Calender especially. Yet it was apparently noted by many that Spenser wrote nothing on the death of Sidney or of Leicester. In a poem by A. W. mentioned later, attention is called to Spenser's failure to commemorate Sidney's death. Possibly his absence from England accounts sufficiently for his silence, but it also seems to me possible that he resented Leicester's failure to come to his support in the trouble which he mentions in Virgils Gnat, and that he included Sidney in his resentment. The Ruines of Time is an attempt on his part to relieve the awkwardness of the situation. Astrophel, apparently written later, seems thoroughly perfunctory.
1 Cf. Ward, Elizabethan Dramatic Literature, i, p. 367; etc.
1 Cf. Greg, Pastoral Poetry, p. 102.