Hymnic Epic andThe Faerie Queene’s Original Printed Format: Canto-Canticles and Psalmic Arguments*

Abstract

AbstractWhen Edmund Spenser (1552?–99) published hisFaerie Queenein 1590 and 1596, two pervasive structural features would have seemed surprising: the abbreviationCant.in sectional and running titles, used instead ofCanto;and a four-line stanza of common meter for each section's argument, instead of a more expansive and prestigious stanza. Study of the relevant early modern Italian and English norms of publication indicates that these were complementary and innovative means of merging heroic form with divine poetry and hymnic discourse, and recognized as such.Cant.readily suggestedcanticleand the Solomonic Canticles, and the poet himself calls one of his so-called cantos a “canticle” (4.5.46). In style and prosodic form, his arguments would have particularly evoked the nationally distinctive Elizabethan Protestant psalmody and hymnody, as well as popular ballads. By incorporating these two metamorphic devices intoThe Faerie Queene's framework, Spenser reconfigured the heroic poem to serve his different, English vision.