Introduction The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Sir Edmund Spenser.

The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza [1] and is one of the longest poems in the English language. It is an allegorical work, and can be read (as Spenser presumably intended) on several levels of allegory, including as praise of Queen Elizabeth I. In a completely allegorical context, the poem follows several knights in an examination of several virtues. In Spenser's "A Letter of the Authors," he states that the entire epic poem is "cloudily enwrapped in allegorical devises," and that the aim of publishing The Faerie Queene was to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline.

Life
Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London around the year 1552 . As a young boy, he was educated in London at the Merchant Taylors' Schooland matriculated as a sizar at Pembroke College, Cambridge.[1][2] While at Cambridge he became a friend of Gabriel Harvey, and later consulted him, despite their differing views on poetry. In July 1580, Spenser went to Ireland in the service of the newly appointed Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. Then he served with the English forces during the Second Desmond Rebellion. After the defeat of the native Irish he was awarded lands in County Cork that had been confiscated in the Munster Plantation during the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland. Among his acquaintances in the area was Walter Raleigh, a fellow colonist. His works are the faerie queene,the shepheaedes,daphnaida,colin clovts come home again,astrophell,amoretti and epithalamion,fowre hymes,prothalamion,spenser Harvey correspondence,a view of the present state of Ireland,