"The Shephearde's Calender"

Paper Summary:

Pastoral poetry as a genre is a proving ground for poets preparing to launch themselves into the world of epics. Also, it is used as a platform to comment on contemporary politics and issues. This paper shows how, in Edmund Spenser's the "Shephearde's Calender", these two facets of pastoral poetry are bound inexorably together in the poet's response to the rule of Queen Elizabeth I.

From the Paper:

"Taking this into consideration in the opening month of Januarye, Spenser makes very clear and distinct political observations. When speaking of the sheep he says they are "so faint they woxe, and feeble in the folde" (8). He also calls them a "feeble flocke, whose fleece is rough and rent" (9). In these lines he symbolically insinuates that the sovereign ruler, Elizabeth through the use of "ill government" (10) is not caring for nor protecting her flock, the English people. As a direct result she is not caring for Spenser or his literary career. We can understand "ill government" to mean Elizabeth's proposed marriage to the French duke which, Spenser believes, is not in the best interests of the English people or the English empire as a whole. By his symbolic representation of the shepherd not caring for the flock we see that Elizabeth places the entire nation, and Spenser's epic and literary career, in jeopardy by considering the marriage to Ale?on."

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