The chief characteristics are:

(1) In form, they consist of three quatrains followed by a couplet, linked together by an artistic arrangement of lines.

(2) They express the pure love of a betrothed lover about to marry his lady and thus differ from the Petrarch and convention of a lover expressing his love for a married lady.

(3) They are unique for their purity and serenity. They have neither the restlessness of Sidney in love with a married lady or the unquiet of Shakespeare whose mistress deceived him with his friend.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

(4) They reveal Spenser’s maidenliness, i.e., his love of the virginal in woman.

(5) In spite of their purity, there is enough of the sensuous in them, enough of sinuous love of form and colour. Spenser is quite frank in the expression of ardor and desire.