ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Edmund Spenser’s series of 12 eclogues, The Shepheardes Calender (1579), is considered the first outstanding pastoral poem in English. By the 17th century less formal eclogues were written by such poets as Richard Lovelace, Robert Herrick, and Andrew Marvell.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Shepheardes Calender is a poem that consists of twelve eclogues. Each eclogue is named after a different month, which represents the turning of seasons. An eclogue is a short pastoral poem that is in the form of a dialogue or soliloquy.

Detailed explanation-3: -The most obvious themes of The Shepheardes Calender include love, the appreciation of poetry, and political and religious matters that were topical at the time the work was published in 1579. Spenser’s larger theme is the invocation of a quasi-mythic English landscape of purity and innocence.

Detailed explanation-4: -About 1579 he came to know Sir Philip Sidney; his first significant work, The Shepheardes Calendar, published under a pseudonym in 1579 and consisting of 12 “ecologues” (one for each month of the year), was dedicated to Sidney.

Detailed explanation-5: -Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, 1579.