Write a short note on
Prothalamion by Edmund Spenser.
Prothalamion is a spousal verse,
composed on the occasion of the wedding of Lady Elizabeth and Lady Katherine
Somerset to Henry Gilford and William Peter.
Though it does not reach the poetic excellence and richness of Epithalamion
it is undeniably a fine lyric exhibiting the same mastery of rhythmical and
musical effect and marked by a more evocative refrain.
David Daiches claims for the poem
a tapestry quality, an almost heraldic tone.
It falls short of Epithalamion in personal intensity in concentration of
effect and in unity of design. The
glaring weaknesses of the poem that mar its unity, are the intrusion of the
personal reminiscences, expression of his frustration, his tribute to Leicester
and Essex, and his nostalgic love of London, his most kindly nurse.
At the linguistic level the
defects are the use of vague clichés like fair, gentle and fine, and the
tedious wordplay in the description of the whiteness of the swans in the lines
40-45. However, it is an exquisite lyric
presenting a stylised picture with sensuous and mythological imagery.