The Spenser Archive Prototype

PROPER: A secondary sense of the word can be ‘elegant’.

familiar: Deriving primarily from its use as a rubric in Cicero’s collection of letters ‘ad familiares’, the term here signifies personal rather than official letters; see Let Intro 1:#.

Aprill last: The earthquake occurred on 6 April 1580.

Versifying: Poetry organized primarily by metrical quantity. Spenser uses the term to contrast with rhyming, just as Ascham does in the Scholemaster (1570): ‘The noble Lord Th. Earle of Surrey, first of all English men, in translating the fourth booke of Virgill: and Gonsalvo Periz that excellent learned man, and Secretarie to kyng Philip of Spaine, in translating the Ulisses of Homer out of Greke into Spanish, have both, by good judgement, avoyded the fault of Ryming, yet neither of them hath fullie hite perfite and trew versifiyng’ (1970: 291).

wellwiller: This intermediary figure has not been identified. The pseudonym might be understood as a translation of ‘Benevolo’, the figure who was to have performed effectively the same function in bringing a different pseudo-unauthorized volume, a collection of Harvey’s letters and poems, to the press around the same time; see Let Intro 1:#.

Bynneman: Bynneman had published van der Noot’s Theatre for Worldlings just a few years after he was made free of the stationers. One of London’s most productive stationers, Bynneman had moved his main shop to the Thames Street site in 1579.

Baynardes Castell: The castle, property of the Earl of Pembroke, was located on the north side of the Thames between Blackfriars to the west and Burley House to the east.

General Materials

Volume I General Introduction
Volume I General Textual Introduction
A Theatre for Worldlings (1569)
The Shepheardes Calender (1579)
Spenser-Harvey Letters (1580)
- General Introduction
- Textual Introduction
- Forme State Analysis
- Eclectic Copy Text
- Text and commentary

The Faerie Queene (1590)
- Forme State Analysis (1590)
- Eclectic Copy Text
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Text and commentary book I
- Text and commentary book II
- Text and commentary book III
- Text and commentary back matter
Complaints (1591)
- Forme State Analysis
- Text
Daphnaida (1591)
Axiochus (1592)
Amoretti and Epithalamion (1595)
Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595)
The Faerie Queene (1596)
- Forme State Analysis (1596 pt II)
- Text book I
- Text book II
- Text book III
- Text book IV
- Text book V
- Text book VI
Fowre Hymnes (1596)
Prothalamion (1596)
- Title Page
- Poems
Two Cantos of Mutabilitie (1609)

A Present Vewe of Ireland
- Introduction
- Texts (provisional transcriptions)
  - Andrew Zurcher’s transcription of the Gonville and Caius manuscript of the Vewe has not been brought into conformity to the transcription protocols of the Spenser Project.
  - Subscribers to EEBO who are members of the Text Creation Partnership can follow this link to the TCP transcription of Ware’s edition of the Vewe. This transcription does not conform to the editorial protocols of the Spenser Project.
- Veue MSS Images

Secretarial Correspondence

Image Tools
- Works UIUC 1

Introduction

The toggles above every page allow you to determine both the degree and the kind of editorial intervention present in the text as you read it. They control, as well, the display of secondary materials—collational notes, glosses, and links to commentary.

Textual Changes

The vagaries of early modern printing often required that lines or words be broken. Toggling Modern Lineation on will reunite divided words and set errant words in their lines.

Off: That a large share it hewd out of the rest, (blest.And glauncing downe his shield, from blame him fairely (FQ I.ii.18.8-9)On: That a large share it hewd out of the rest,And glauncing downe his shield, from blame him fairely blest.

Toggling Expansions on will undo certain early modern abbreviations.

Off: Sweet slõbring deaw, the which to sleep them biddes:(FQ I.i.36.4)On: Sweet slombring deaw, the which to sleep them biddes:

Toggling Modern Characters on will convert u, v, i, y, and vv to v, u, j, i, and w. (N.B. the editors have silently replaced ſ with s, expanded most ligatures, and adjusted spacing according contemporary norms.)

Off: And all the world in their subiection held,Till that infernall feend with foule vprore(FQ I.i.5.6-7)On: And all the world in their subjection held,Till that infernall feend with foule uprore

Toggling Lexical Modernizations on will conform certain words to contemporary orthographic standards.

Off: But wander too and fro in waies vnknowne(FQ I.i.10.5)On: But wander to and fro in waies vnknowne.

Toggling Emendations on will correct obvious errors in the edition on which we base our text and modernize its most unfamiliar features.

Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine(FQ I.i.14.9)14.9. Most lothsom] this edn.;Mostlothsom 1590

(The text of 1590 reads Mostlothsom, while the editors’ emendation reads Most lothsom.)

Apparatus

Toggling Collation Notes on will highlight words that differ among printings.

And shall thee well rewarde to shew the place,(FQ I.i.31.5)5. thee] 1590; you 1596, 1609

(The text of 1590 reads thee, while the texts of 1596 and 1609 read you.)

Toggling Commentary Links on will show links to the editors’ commentary.

Toggling Line Numbers on will show the number of the line within each stanza.

Toggling Stanza Numbers on will show the number of the stanza within each canto.

Toggling Glosses on will show the definitions of unfamiliar words or phrases.

To my long approoved and singular good frende, Master G.H.(Letters I.1)1. long aprooved: tried and true,found trustworthy over along period