ly imitates Virgil’s; however, there are several similarities between the two. In August, the singing contest parallels those of Eclogue 3 and 7, and in November, the funeral lament recalls that of Eclogue 5. The writing of the beloved in January 55-60 to Eclogue 2.54-6, and the description of the locos amoenus in June 1-16 to Eclogue 1.48-58 are a few examples of closer imitations (Kennedy 718).While the Eclogues had a profound influence on Spenser, the moral Georgics did not carry as much significance as Virgil’s other works, including the Aeneid, Virgil’s Gnat, and the Culex. More so, his direct copying from Georgics is far less obvious. In Book 1 of 1 of The Faerie Queene, the fall of the giants echoes Book 1 of Georgics. ”It is a sequence of didactic poems depicting varied endeavors as The Shepheardes Calender would do on a pastoral scale as The Faerie Queene would do on a epic scale” (Kennedy 718).Virgil’s works provided insight for every Renaissance epic poet. In The Faerie Queene, Spenser twice interlocks versions of Eclogue 1 when he pastoralizes the iron age Ireland of Book 5 into the golden world of Book 6. He rewrites Virgil’s story of exile into one of return with Meliboe’s tale of his trip to the city. The “construction of ‘home’ out of distance from city and court parallels Spenser’s two-fold position as a kind of exile from England and a home-making colonizer in Ireland” (Lupton). Secondly, he softens the tragic Virgilian fate of Meliboe’s murder by restoring the country lands to Coridon. “In both cases, Spenser resolves Virgil’s painful, structural contrast between ‘exile’ and ‘home’ into a redemptive narrative sequence of exile followed by return or repossession” (Lupton).When Renaissance poets began writing epics praising the hierarchy, the question of whether or not the stressed virt...
