Autobiography of a playwright.

Edmund Spenser

I was born in 1552, about the middle of the 16th century in London. I was called “The poet’s poet” as my friend Charles Lamb used to call me. As my father was a poor tailor a kind benefactor assisted me in order to get a good education. First I studied in one of the grammar schools in the capital and then as a partially free students at Cambridge. I began early writing poetry but three years after I left Cambridge my first volume of literature, the Shepherd’s Calendar, appeared in 1579. Soon after, I lived chiefly in northern England, where I fell in love with Rosa, the woman I call Rosalind in my poems.

I returned to London urged by one of my college friends, who had high connections at court. There, some of my friends introduced me to Sr Philip Sidney. At that time, it was necessary for authors like me to have influential friends if we did not want to starve. Although to produce books did not cost too much, there was a limited number of people that did not want to read my art, and because of that I lived in a humiliating position.  However, in 1580 I was appointed secretary to Lord Arthur Grey of Wilton, the successor of Lord Sidney as lord-deputy of Ireland. I was present at many bloody and violent scenes that took place during the two years Lord Grey’s attempt of pacification. I agreed to them and then I composed a memorandum and handed it to the queen and her advisers; I proposed a plan of practical extermination of that stubborn race. At the same time, I wrote the first three books of my eternally famous Faery Queen.

At the moment, I got married to Elizzabeth Boyle. We had four children and while the years following my marriage, I published some poetical works and two more cantos of the Faery Queen. But in 1597 misfortune overtook me. In another revolt the Irish burned down my castle Kilcolman. Consequently I had to escape to England with my wife and my children. Finally, I died poor and miserable on January 16^th 1599 and I was buried in Westminster Abbaey, near my master Geoffrey Chaucer.