Books and manuscripts were eagerly sought after, Scholars became conversant
with Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and the great tragic poets Sophocles,
Euripides, and Æschylus; and translations for the many of Vergil, Ovid,
Plautus, Terence, and Seneca poured forth from the printing-presses of
London. The English mind was strongly tempered by the idealistic philosophy
of Plato and Aristotle, and the influence of Latin tragedy and comedy was
strongly felt by the early English drama.

Along with this classical culture came a higher appreciation of the _beauty
of mediævalism_. The romantic tendency of the age fostered the study of the
great epics of chivalry, Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_ and Tasso's _Jerusalem
Delivered_, and of the cycles of French romance. From the Italian poets
especially Spenser borrowed freely. Ariosto's fresh naturalness and magic
machinery influenced him most strongly, but he was indebted to the
semi-classical Tasso for whole scenes. On the whole, therefore, Spenser's
literary affinities were more with the Gothic than the classical.

Spenser was also the spokesman of his time on religious questions. The
violent controversies of the Reformation period were over. Having turned
from the beliefs of ages with passionate rejection, the English people had
achieved religious freedom, and were strongly rooted in Protestantism,
which took on a distinctly national aspect. That Calvinism was at that time
the popular and aristocratic form of Protestantism is evident from
references in the _Faerie Queene_.

Spenser lived in the afterglow of the great age of chivalry. The passing
glories of knighthood in its flower impressed his imagination like a
gorgeous dream, and he was thus inspired to catch and crystallize into
permanent art its romantic spirit and heroic deeds. Into the framework of
his romance of chivalry he inserted a veiled picture of the struggles and