"In every poem there ought to be simplicity and unity; and in the epic poem the unity of the action should never be violated by introducing any ill-joined or heterogeneous parts. This essential rule Spenser seems to me strictly to have followed; for what story can well be shorter or more simple than the subject of this poem? A British prince sees in a vision the Fairy Queen, and he falls in love, and goes in search after this unknown fair; and at length finds her. This fable has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is, the British prince saw in a vision the Fairy Queen, and fell in love with her; the middle, his search after her, with the adventures that he underwent; the end, his finding whom he sought."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
John Upton, Preface to Spenser's Faerie Queene, Vol. I (1758), p. xx–xxi
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Faerie_Queene
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The Faerie Queene
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