Like most Renaissance writers, Edmund Spenser usually prefaced his poems with dedicatory letters that complimented the recipients and also provided helpful interpretations for other readers. Further indications of Spenser’s theories about “English versifying” appear in his correspondence with Gabriel Harvey: Three Proper, and Wittie, Familiar Letters (1580) and Foure Letters and Certaine Sonnets (1586). Although A View of the Present State of Ireland was written in 1596, it was not published until 1633, thirty-four years after the author’s death. In this treatise, Spenser presented a clear picture of Elizabethan Ireland and its political, economic, and social evils. The serious tone of this work deepens the significance of the Irish allusions and imagery throughout Spenser’s poetry.
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