Edmund Spenser’s marriage hymn

was first printed in a single octavo in 1595, together with the poet’s sonnet sequence

. They were entered in the Stationers’ Register on 19thNovember 1594 and were first published by William Ponsonby. Later folio editions printed together with

and Spenser’s other shorter poems are dated 1611 and 1617. The initial appearance of

and

in the same printed volume suggests that the poems were to be read in sequence; as such, the trials of love narrated in the sonnets can be seen to find their final conclusions not in the scattered disappointments of

, but in the lyrical harmonies of

. After the frustrated limitations of

’s Petrarchan complaint, the formal…

1770 words

Citation: Badcoe, Tamsin Theresa. "Epithalamion". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 June 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5321, accessed 21 November 2024.]

• View recommended reading for this article