Spenser’s “Home”

Abstract

The consensus of Spenser’s biographers is that Ireland never became his home. In this article, I question the assumptions that Spenser was banished to Ireland and that he viewed his years in Ireland as an exile. At critical junctures in Spenser’s life, 1579–80, 1582, 1588–91, and 1595–96, when he might have tried to make a career in England, he chose Ireland. I explore the reasons why Spenser decided to make his home in Ireland. In the process, I show that Ireland was less repressive than Whitgift’s England and argue that Ireland offered him independence from the uncertainties of the patronage system. In Ireland, Spenser could earn the means to support his family and to write the Faerie Queene.