UK U-Sussex’s Andrew Hadfield on Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, & Epic Poetry

In this week’s episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts Prof. Albert Cheng of the University of Arkansas and Alisha Searcy of the Center for Strong Public Schools speak with Andrew Hadfield, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Sussex and British Academy Fellow, about the life, works, and legacy of the great poet Edmund Spenser. Prof. Hadfield explains how Edmund Spenser’s uncertain family background and humanist education at Merchant Taylors’ School and Cambridge, grounded in Virgil, Ovid, Petrarch, and Chaucer, shaped his literary imagination within Elizabethan England. He situates Spenser amid the many political and religious tensions of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, and traces Spenser’s rise through The Shepheardes Calender and patronage under the 4th Earl of Leicester, Robert Sidney. Then, Prof. Hadfield turns to The Faerie Queene, its epic allegorical knights, virtues, and the Spenserian stanza, all of which widely influenced British literature and ultimately the English language across the globe. He addresses Spenser’s controversial Irish writings and reflects on his enduring reputation as a foundational “poet’s poet.” Prof. Hadfield closes the interview with a reading from The Faerie Queene.