Four talks to mark the fourth centenary of Spenser's birth
3 — ' The Prince of Poets of his Tyme' by E. M. W. Tillyard , Litt.D.
Master of Jesus College, Cambridge
The speaker discusses whether Spenser did in fact fulfil the great ambitions he entertained when he wrote The Faerie
Queene. Dr. Tillyard shows how Spenser consciously set out to emulate Ariosto and how he aimed at being the English Virgil, and places him in h:s literary context -native and European. The title of this talk is taken from the epitaph on Spenser's tomb in Westminster Abbey.