"Spenser, I think, may be reckoned the first of our heroic poets. He had a large spirit, a sharp judgment, and a genius for heroic poetry, perhaps above any that ever wrote since Virgil. But our misfortune is, he wanted a true idea, and lost himself by following an unfaithful guide. Though besides Homer and Virgil he had read Tasso, yet he rather suffered himself to be misled by Ariosto, with whom blindly rambling on marvels and adventures, he makes no conscience of probability; all is fanciful and chimerical, without any uniformity, or without any foundation in truth; his poem is perfect fairy land."
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Thomas Rymer, 'The Preface of the Translator' to Rapin's Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise of Poesie (1674)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Spenser
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Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet, who wrote such pastorals as The Shepheardes Calendar, Astrophell and Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, but is most famous for the multi-layered allegorical romance, The Faerie Queene.
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