Lo Collin, here the Place: Locating the World of Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender

This essay examines the use of space in Spenser’s early pastoral work, The Shepheardes Calender. In a pastoral mode that has often been characterized by its literal stasis, space—and the movement through it—actually figures as a dynamic element of the poem’s ecclesiastical and political satire; moreover, space becomes an important context for examining the poet’s progression from a pastoral to an epic role. By grounding the characters in spaces that are both heavily allegorized and yet highly resonant with the reality of sixteenth-century England, Spenser creates a regional landscape that evokes the actual world around him. Finally, the essay suggests that we might better understand the development of the Calender’s regional (or topographical) landscape as a precursor to Spenser’s eventual development of a national (or chorographical) landscape in The Faerie Queene.