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Spenser, Edmund

(Encyclopedia) Spenser, Edmund, 1552?–1599, English poet, b. London. He was the friend of men eminent in literature and at court, including Gabriel Harvey, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, and…

Brewer's: Faërie Queene

A metrical romance in six books, by Edmund Spenser (incomplete). It details the adventures of various knights, who impersonate different virtues, and belong to the court of Gloriana, Queen…

George, Saint

(Encyclopedia) George, Saint, 4th cent.?, perhaps a soldier in the imperial army who died for the faith in Asia Minor. His life is cloaked in legends; Gibbon's identification of him with George of…

allegory

(Encyclopedia) allegory, in literature, symbolic story that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface. The characters in an allegory often have no…

epic

(Encyclopedia) epic, long, exalted narrative poem, usually on a serious subject, centered on a heroic figure. The earliest epics, known as primary, or original, epics, were shaped from the legends of…

Brewer's: Faërie

or Feerie. The land of the fays or faeries. The chief fay realms are Avalon, an island somewhere in the ocean; Oberon's dominions, situate “in wilderness among the holtis hairy;” and a…

The Celtic Twilight: The Queen and the Fool

by W. B. Yeats WarThe Friends of the People of FaeryThe Queen and the Fool I have heard one Hearne, a witch-doctor, who is on the border of Clare and Galway, say that in "every household…