Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 – 13 January 1599) was an important poet from England. He is most famous for his epic poem The Faerie Queene, which talks about different knights who fight against evil. The poem also praises Queen Elizabeth I of England. He wrote also many sonnets and poems. The sonnets were collected under the name of Amoretti.

Edmund Spenser invented a new rhyme-scheme for sonnet (abab bcbc cdcd ee) and a nine-line stanza (ababbcbcc). These forms are today called Spenserian sonnet and Spenserian stanza. Spenserian stanza was later used by many poems, among others by George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats and Alfred Tennyson.