Explain how Spenser, in Epithalamion, celebrates not just his wedding but the aspirations of an entirely new class of people.

While there is no mention of, reference to nor allusion to
a class of people in Spenser's Epithalamion, Spenser himself
represented the new class of individuals who had new opportunity--within the outlines of
traditional opportunity--to rise through the arts of English poetry to transition to a
higher social class, the transition being spurred by exploration and
colonization.

Additionally, Spenser and his friend, Philip
Sydney, embraced the dream of building a new class of prestigious English poets, as
English poetry had not produced much in the way of excellence, in Sidney's estimation,
since Chaucer. Sidney and Spenser, part of a group called the Areopagus--who were
sidetracked for a while by trying to make English poetry fit the very dissimilar prosody
of Latin--aspired to create great English language poetry  founded on classical genre
models that had not yet been attempted in English.

As was
true even in Chaucer's time, poets rose socially and economically by means of
preferments, patronage and favor at Court. This was quite true for Spenser, as well as
for Sidney. For example, Spenser was given a yearly fifty pound pension by Queen
Elizabeth I because she was so pleased with The Faerie Queene,
which Spenser hand-delivered to her through the patronage of Sir Walter Raleigh. This
longstanding tradition merged with new worldwide conditions and helped to create a new
class of people.

href="http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/16century/topic_2/welcome.htm">Exploration
was taking place on a worldwide scope and colonization was central to harvesting the
resources of newly discovered lands. Because of colonization, a mercantile class rose up
to import and sell the new goods, like tobacco and tomatoes, from lands like the
Americas. Colonization also opened up many more opportunities for preferment through the
Protestant Court of Queen Elizabeth I, and Spenser was one who benefited, being given
significant government posts in the then Catholic colony of Ireland. There he acquired
many landholdings, some taken from confiscated Catholic Abbey holdings. These
landholdings allowed him to rise to the social class of gentleman along with others who
found the same social mobility resulting from
colonization.

Elizabeth Boyle was the daughter of a landed
gentleman of a long established and important family in Hertfordshire. After the love
trials described in Amoretti, Elizabeth finally agreed to become
Spenser's second wife (first wife, Machabyas Chylde, 1579). Spenser's father was a cloth
weaver in London but of "An house of ancient fame" ("Prothalamion"). Since there is no
evidence that his father John Spenser could provide Spenser with a claim to being a
landed gentleman, it is clear that without colonial-based land acquisitions, Spenser
could never have joined this exploration and colonization based new class of people and,
thus, could never have entertained marrying Elizabeth, and, thus,
Epithalamion would never have been written, nor
Amoretti.

[See href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=6467">Edmund Spenser,
Poetry Foundation for more information.]