Amoretti: A sonnet sequence

MP3 Audio CD. Born in London and matriculated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Edmund Spenser (1552 ? 1599) would later go on to become one of the greatest poets who ever wrote in the English language. His sonnets are still admired and taught today, and his most famous masterpiece, The Faerie Queene, remains to this day one of the best works of allegory as well as one of the longest English poems.

Amoretti is another successful and highly acclaimed sonnet cycle that Spenser became known for. Presenting his courtship and marriage to Elizabeth Boyle, it was first published in 1595, but achieved a poor reception from critics for quite a long time. Although it was mostly overshadowed by Spenser?s other great works, the sonnet sequence you have before you was also claimed to be one of the most innovative works of its time.

When compared to other 16th century sonnets and even to subsequent works by great poets that would come after Spenser?s time, Amoretti is one of the more subtle and emotionally expressive works of poetic art that ever came from the famous Englishman. Touching upon a great range of tones and heavily drawing upon the main authors of the Petrarchan tradition, Amoretti is somewhat of a blend between Petrarchan courtship and the conceit of spiritual love that first arose in the neoplatonic ideologies set up more than a millennia earlier by the Platonic Academy in Athens.

Despite being criticized for his traditionalist approach even in the 20th century, Spenser became more popular as of late, as many critics today see the full potential of Amoretti and the true value of the poet?s work.

Unlike most Petrarchan poems, Amoretti doesn?t target an unattainable love interest, nor does it create conflict between spiritual and sexual love. Instead, Spenser turns the poem sequence into an entirely original work of art that was built around an unmarried woman whose heart the speaker could actually win most honorably.