''Epithalamion'' is an ode written by

Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for '' The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen o ...

to his bride, Elizabeth Boyle, on their wedding day in 1594. It was first published in 1595 in London by William Ponsonby as part of a volume entitled ''Amoretti and Epithalamion. Written not long since by Edmunde Spenser''. The volume included the sequence of 89 sonnets (''

Amoretti ''Amoretti'' is a sonnet cycle written by Edmund Spenser in the 16th century. The cycle describes his courtship and eventual marriage to Elizabeth Boyle. ''Amoretti'' was first published in 1595 in London by William Ponsonby. It was printed as ...

''), along with a series of short poems called ''Anacreontics'' and the ''Epithalamion'', a public poetic celebration of marriage. Only six complete copies of this first edition remain today, including one at the

Folger Shakespeare Library The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materi ...

and one at the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the sec ...

. The ode begins with an invocation to the

Muses In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...

to help the groom, and moves through the couple's wedding day, from Spenser's impatient hours before dawn while waiting for his bride to wake up, to the late hours of night after Spenser and Boyle have consummated their marriage (wherein Spenser's thoughts drift towards the wish for his bride to have a fertile womb so that they may have many children). Spenser meticulously records the hours of the day from before dawn to late into the wedding night: its 24 stanzas represent the hours of Midsummer Day. The ode's content progresses from the enthusiasm of youth to the concerns of middle age by beginning with high hopes for a joyful day and ending with an eye toward the speaker's legacy to future generations.

Background

Spenser lived from 1552 to 1599. Works in this time period are considered

Early Modern literature The history of literature of the early modern period (16th, 17th and partly 18th century literature), or early modern literature, succeeds Medieval literature, and in Europe in particular Renaissance literature. In Europe, the Early Modern p ...

, which spanned from the

Baroque period The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires includin ...

to the

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. It saw writers such as

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best kno ...

Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel '' Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...

and

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Du ...

in Europe. He was also considered to be a part of the Elizabethan era. It coincided with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and is considered to be the literary height of the English Renaissance. Poetic forms such as love

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

s, the

pastoral A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depict ...

, and the allegorical epic were popular in this era.

Summary

Epithalamion is a poem celebrating a marriage. An

epithalamium An epithalamium (; Latin form of Greek ἐπιθαλάμιον ''epithalamion'' from ἐπί ''epi'' "upon," and θάλαμος ''thalamos'' nuptial chamber) is a poem written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber. This form ...

is a song or poem written specifically for a bride on her way to the marital chamber. In Spenser's work, he is spending the day anxiously awaiting to marry Elizabeth Boyle. The poem describes the day in detail. The couple wakes up and Spenser begs the muses to help him on his artistic endeavor for the day. Spenser spends a majority of the poem praising his bride to be, which is depicted as both innocent and lustful. When she finally wakes, the two head to the church. Hymen Hymenaeus is sung by the minstrels at the festivities. As the ceremony begins, Spenser shifts from praising

Greek Gods The following is a list of gods, goddesses, and many other divine and semi-divine figures from ancient Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion. Immortals The Greeks created images of their deities for many purposes. A temple would house th ...

and beings to Christian language to praise Elizabeth. After the ceremony, Spenser becomes even more anxious at the thought of consummating the marriage. Spenser then rebukes any idea of evil that could ruin their new found happiness. Spenser asks for blessings for childbearing, fidelity, and all things good at the end.

Structure

Epithalamion follows a rhyme a scheme of ABABCC, DEDEFF, and so on (except the 15th stanza.). The structure is 24 stanzas, each with either 18 lines or 19 (15th stanza has 17 lines). The last stanza is an envoy(a short formal stanza which is appended to a poem by way of conclusion) with 7 lines. There are 433 lines in total. In the 15th stanza, Spenser changes the structure. Throughout the poem, the stanzas are structured with 18 or 19 lines. In the 15th, there is a line missing. The rhyming structure typically goes ABABCC, then DEDEFF and so on. But stanza 15 is FEGGHH. This might have been done to keep the

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

of the poem or to keep the structure of the 365 lines as a metaphor for a year.

Numerology

There are 24 stanzas and 433 lines in the poem. There are 365 longer lines and 68 shorter lines. The 365 longer lines represent the year leading up to Spenser's wedding day. The poem starts at midnight of the day of the wedding, as Spenser grows anxious of the future he is embracing. Every stanza is an hour of that day, eventually leading to the event and then to the consummation. Every hour is described in detail; from what is being worn to where the wedding is taking place to Spenser's own thoughts. The 24 stanzas represent the 24 hours in a day and the 365 longer lines represent every day in a year. Spenser's wedding is one day; the first 16 stanzas are the day time and the last 8 are the night time, and the relationship with Boyle has been occurring for a year.

Reception

Many modern scholars argue the effectiveness of Spenser's work. James Lambert wrote about how the poem connected to the

Protestant Reform The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...

of the time "Spenser’s Epithalamion reflects this communal joy as it narrates a public celebration of marriage, and does so in song and psalmic refrains. Spenser’s poetic interest in the earthly nature of joy takes Epithalamion beyond an expression of celebratory, communal Thjoy and into a more private, secret joy that remains ineffable. Finally, the poem moves toward affective joy, bestowing a kind of blessedness, or even grace, upon the listener, much like the practice of reciting the Psalms itself was supposed to do. Countering the relative absence of joy as a lived emotion, Spenser’s Epithalamion sets out to combine the discourses of joy—psalmic praises, hymnody, spiritual comfort, heavenly foretaste, festivity, matrimony, and finally, sex—into an all-inclusive articulation." Melissa Sanchez's essay praised the hidden messages in the poem, while James Larsen spoke of the poem in his critical edition: "''Epithalamion'' is a poem which gives ritualized and public affect to the personal on a number of levels, cosmographical, publicly prayerful and euchological." In 1929 British composer Edgar Bainton wrote his orchestral rhapsody ''Epithalamion'', based on Spenser's poem.

References

{{Authority control Poetry by Edmund Spenser 1594 poems