This morning, while doing a bit of research to fill out the trivia section of How To Be Clever, I established that the second poet to be buried in Poets' Corner (thus turning it into Poets' Corner rather than The Place Where Geoffrey Chaucer Happened To Be Buried Alongside Lots Of Non-Poets) was Edmund Spenser. It struck me that I should really have heard of Edmund Spenser before, but I couldn't remember ever coming across the name. Still, it was nice to add to my general knowledge.
Then, this afternoon, idly browsing an internet forum rather than working on How To Be Clever, I saw someone making a passing reference to Edmund Spenser in an entirely non-poetic discussion. I'm sure I haven't seen that kind of mention before. I suspect he never existed before today, and it's all a big internet conspiracy.
Yes, someone else must have written that 16th century poem, The Faerie Queen, and just put his name on it. Perhaps it was Shakespeare, to make up for the fact his name had been attached to stuff written by Bacon or Marlow or whoever the other contenders are!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenser/main.htm
ReplyDeletethe Spenser dude's home page, lol!
He weren't made up ZZ!