“Pan is Hee”: Commending The Faerie Queene

Abstract

An unrecorded manuscript in the Edinburgh University Library reveals that the commendatory verses printed with the 1590 Faerie Queene may not have been the first poems written to praise Spenser’s epic. Dated 1588, this manuscript commendation is intriguing for both its form, a Spenserian sonnet before any Spenserian sonnets were in print, and its content (its tropes of praise differ interestingly from those deployed by the printed commendations). The essay suggests reasons for thinking the poem the work of Thomas Watson, and explores the evidence it provides for the pre-publication circulation of The Faerie Queene and, more generally, for the culture of manuscript communication and commentary that linked Spenser and his circle of friends and patrons.

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