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Article: Other places, other times: the sites of the Proems to 'The Faerie Queene.'
- Article from:
- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
- Article date:
- January 1, 1994
- Author:
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But forth to tellen of this worthy man That taughte me this tale, as I bigan, I seye that first with heigh stile he enditeth, Er he the body of his tale writeth, A proheyme . . .
Chaucer, "The Clerk's Prologue," lines 39-43(1)
Preceding each of the six completed books of The Faerie Queene stand groups of from four to eleven stanzas known as the "Proems."(2) The word "proem" first appears in English in the work of one of Spenser's most influential literary parents, Chaucer, but the form of Spenser's prefatory stanzas has no obvious source in his great predecessor's works. Nor does it have any direct source in the other principal literary forebears of The ...