Newfag here. During the brief time I've been here, I've seen many posts claiming Spenser as the greatest of English literature. In my ignorant opinion, it seems that Spenser is often the forgotten fourth pillar of the English canon, (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton). I would like to know if you agree or disagree from that statement.
I'm also very interested in wondering where to start with Spenser, probably the Faerie Queene. If that's the case are there any preferred editions with annotations or footnotes. It would help this novice greatly.
> I've seen many posts claiming Spenser as the greatest of English literature > In my ignorant opinion, it seems that Spenser is often the forgotten fourth pillar of the English canon
user, make up your mind.
Ryder Diaz
Apologies, I meant to say Spenser is only exposed at extreme scholastic avenues, whereas the big three are exposed at advanced high school curriculum.
I just wanted a general Spenser discussion. Feel free to ignore my anecdotes.
Anthony Lee
Definitely Faerie Queene. Literally start from book 1. The problem with notes is that really the symbolism is so dense that you can have notes on a single stanza that go a page because of the cool effects in the metrical pattern that denote a theme (for example, he commonly reuses sounds over and over to convey the feeling of being trapped, or the characters going through circles), or in book 1, Canto 1 or 2, where RCK and Una go into a forest and it describes the types of trees they pass, each one having a different medieval symbolism, such as the Elms (?) in the center ring of the forest being the same wood used in the trojan horse, which means they are travelling further into a state of moral decay, or on another the forest is more evil in the center, yadda yadda
No, I'm not exaggerating, it's that dense. Don't expect to get most of it, or you'll never finish the fucking thing.
Enjoy, it's not much in terms of philosphy but it is one of the most essential works of fantasy ever written.
Anthony Walker
>Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton Seems like things just went downhill doesn't it
Christian Ramirez
Go for the Penguin edition of the FQ. It's sparse on notes, but it's better to start that way. Read for the pleasure of the story and for the language and you'll likely pick up the broader allegories (like the RCK battling Sansloy, Sansfoy, and Sansjoy). There is an amazing annotated edition, but it really is too much at first and the burden to understand will overwhelm the pleasure. And it is a text filled with pleasure.
Asher Bailey
OP, you need to start with The Shepheardes Calender. It's a good foundation for Spenser. He's such a cheeky fuck that he glosses his own poems under a fake name. Also, the main character in the shepheardes calender shows up again in the faerie queene.
Camden Torres
Spenser's a great poet, but I wouldn't put him in the same league as the names you mentioned. He was hardly as influential as them, and even Shakespeare is in a league of his own since no one comes close to having the influence he did on English literature. I'm not sure if there's even a parellel for Shakespeare in world literature except maybe Don Quixote.
Eli Sanchez
This. But also add Homer and possibly Dante, and very possibly keep Chaucer. Then you're right. Tolstoy is another possible candidate for modernish times I guess.
Spenser isn't very influential at all outside of influencing Milton, Blake, and Shelley, who honestly weren't even combined close to the heft of Shakespeare. But he is a very worthy read.
Ian Davis
this shakespeare shit is getting ridiculous
all you random assholes saying shakespeare is god...you don't even see how stupid you look
Kevin Hill
I didn't call him God, but he's much more influential than however much you seem to think he is. Even if the influence is through secondary influences now, like Dostoevsky, Joyce, Faulkner, etc.
But he is also quite a great read.
Asher Young
>but he's much more influential than however much you seem to think he is is that supposed to mean anything?
Brayden Gray
Yes, it means:
"but he's much more influential than however much you seem to think he is"
:^)
Nolan Price
I agree with you on Homer, but I wouldn't put Tolstoy on the list since he was just as great as any other 19th century novelist.
It's the originality of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Homer that makes them influential.
Dante was a great poet, but before him, plenty of Roman and Greek poets wrote in the vernacular. He was just reminding Italians that their ancestors originally did that and that there was no reason for them to revere the Latin tongue anymore than Tuscan. The writing of Dante itself, while amazing, doesn't go much further than Virgil's or Biblical style.
Tolstoy is another great writer who is continuing on with the realist tradition which ultimately comes from Cervantes.
I don't particularly enjoy Cervantes. There are better novelists. But he gave us the form. He was an original, a genius. Most modern writing can be traced back to Homer, Shakespeare, and Cervantes. Not every great writer must be a genius.
Caleb Butler
OP here. Once again, Shakespeare being considered the greatest is up for debate. I never claimed he was the greatest.
Xavier Harris
:^)
Kayden Edwards
Fair enough. I suppose as Ezra Pound bragged, there are innovators and masters (and of course a bunch of types of frauds.) Dante and Tolstoy being Masters, Shakespeare being possibly both, and Homer and Cervantes being Imnovators.
Brody Lewis
I see we've read the same critical writing. That bit of writing from Ezra Pound is what influences my thought on Homer, Shakespeare, and Cervantes as the greatest innovators. I think what makes Shakespeare the greatest genius of literature is his ability to innovate and master theater.
Nonetheless, I'm rarely in the mood to read his writing all the time. It's like looking in the sun.
Angel Green
(OP) Yep, he's exceptional. His set-piece imagery, command of sound and rhyme are the greatest in English literature.
Yeah that's not really true though. Pretty much every English poet up to the 20th century bears some mark of Spenser. He is also THE central poet of the English renaissance (moreso than Shakespeare) in terms of influence. No Spenser, then there's no Milton, Pope or Keats.
>The writing of Dante itself, while amazing, doesn't go much further than Virgil's or Biblical style.
lol just lol
Elijah Nguyen
I disagree. Spenser didn't invent allegory and plenty of English poets before him, especially medieval poets, wrote allegory. For one, I can hardly name any American poets who bear Spenser's mark, especially the most American of poets, Walt Whitman.
"lol just lol" all you want freshman. Dante's a great writer, but there's nothing innovative about writing an epic allegory considering medieval and ancient writing was chiefly epic and allegorical.
Jonathan Bennett
>Spenser was not influential
He was very influential. Almost every great poet after him has been influenced, directly or indirectly, by his work, and literature as a whole has been influenced by him through his influence on other poets. You don't seem to know what you are talking about.
William Harris
In what way? For writing allegory? There's nothing special about writing allegory.
Michael Powell
>people actually disregard Spenser and Dane for writing in an allegorical style
Jace Moore
>"lol just lol" all you want freshman. Dante's a great writer, but there's nothing innovative about writing an epic allegory considering medieval and ancient writing was chiefly epic and allegorical.
lol
That's like saying writing a realist novel wasn't original so there's nothing innovative about Ulysses (and yes, Ulysses is very realist).
>I disagree. Spenser didn't invent allegory and plenty of English poets before him, especially medieval poets, wrote allegory. For one, I can hardly name any American poets who bear Spenser's mark, especially the most American of poets, Walt Whitman.
Allegory is desu a minor part of Spenser's work, his influence is far more felt in terms of form and style. Look, in English literature, before Spenser, there was Chaucer, 150 years ago, and then nothing. Spenser and Sidney together are Year Zero for English as a literary vernacular.
Do you know who invented iambic pentameter in English? Spenser did.
Gabriel King
So you've never read, let alone study, Spenser or Dante.
Cooper Cruz
I'm not disregarding them, just saying they are not particularly innovative in terms of form.
So Joyce is like the Bach of realism. For some reason you seem to think that I'm saying Spenser and Dante aren't great writers. I keep on saying that. I just don't believe they
And you're just completely wrong about Chaucer and Spenser being year zero. There are plenty of other poets from their period, they just happened to be the best (2nd best in the case of Spenser).
Also, why would you claim that Spenser invented iambic pentameter? It's just a natural speech pattern in English.
Chaucer and Spenser are great, but just a tier below Shakespeare.
Julian Long
Also, I'm British so I don't really care about American poets. If you want to talk about that literary tradition, then sure Spenser isn't as important (although he is still taught as mandatory in at least some American universities alongside Chaucer/Shakespeare/Milton).
Spenser was a master of iambic pentameter, though.
Also, it's not like there was a void between Chaucer and Spenser. That's just absurd. There were poets, mainly aristocrats, who wrote poetry, like Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey,
Alexander Anderson
>Do you know who invented iambic pentameter in English? Spenser did.
Uh no, it was used at least 50 years before Faerie Queene. Though he and Shakespeare were expert reformers of it.
Wyatt Perry
I don't think you're saying they aren't great writers. I think you're saying the're unoriginal writers, which is simply false. Go read the entirety of Medieval literature before Dante, which consists entirely of love lyrics, banal romances and devotional works, and then tell me he's not innovative.
>Also, why would you claim that Spenser invented iambic pentameter? It's just a natural speech pattern in English.
lol it's not. Yeesh. It's a highly refined form of something akin to our natural speech pattern.
Brayden Martin
>It was actually Chaucer
Arguable, he tended around 10 syllables a line, but it doesn't usually scan as perfect iambic. He did popularize the use of 10 syllables though.
Parker Murphy
>they are not particularly innovative in terms of form.
Allegory is not form, it's a poetic device. In terms of form, both Spenser and Dante certainly were innovative, devicing their very own stanzaic patterns (Spenserian stanza and terza rima).
Indeed, allegory may not be innovative in the way Spenser used it. In fact, most of his images were commonplace at the time. But the greatness of his allegorical style, why he is remembered, it's because of the many layers of meaning behind that allegory, and the poetic force he had.
If you don't think giving new life, strength, and meaning to commonplace imaged by means of poetry is not innovative, then there is something off with your reading of Spenser.
Anthony Lewis
>f*cking white males
wow just wow
Hudson Butler
Again, there's a huge gap in the tradition between Chaucer and the 16th century, because of the shift from Middle to Modern English. People in the 1550's didn't know what metre Chaucer was using because they didn't know how to pronounce him.
>Also, it's not like there was a void between Chaucer and Spenser. That's just absurd. There were poets, mainly aristocrats, who wrote poetry, like Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey,
Yes, true. And all they were doing was writing imitations of Petrarch. The Shepheard's Calendar was the bomb that inaugurated the English literary renaissance.
Juan Gray
(OP) Anyway, for people who have read the Faerie Queene, which bits are your favourites?
Book 2 was my favourite, especially the Bowre of Bliss which is just delicious.
Eftsoons they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote delight a dantie eare, Such as attonce might not on liuing ground, Saue in this Paradise, be heard elsewhere: Right hard it was, for wight, which did it heare, To read, what manner musicke that mote bee: For all that pleasing is to liuing eare, Was there consorted in one harmonee, Birdes, voyces, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.
The joyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet; Th’ Angelicall soft trembling voyces made To th’ instruments divine respondence meet; The silver sounding instruments did meet With the base murmure of the waters fall; The waters fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle warbling wind low answerèd to all.
What I love most about Spenser is his ear. I think he has the best ear in the English language. No-one can even approach the sweetness of his verse when he pulls out all the stops.
