Faerie queene
The Faerie Queene was one of the most influential poems in the English language. Dedicating his work to Elizabeth I, Spenser brilliantly united Arthurian romance and Italian renaissance epic to celebrate the glory of the Virgin Queen. Each book of the poem recounts the quest of a knight to achieve a virtue: the Red Crosse Knight of Holinesse, who must slay a dragon and free himself from the witch Duessa; Sir Guyon, Knight of Temperance, who escapes the Cave of Mammon and destroys Acrasia’s Bowre of Bliss; and the lady-knight Britomart’s search for her Sir Artegall, revealed to her in an enchanted mirror. Although composed as a moral and political allegory, The Faerie Queene’s magical atmosphere captivated the imaginations of later poets from Milton to the Victorians.
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- Very neat! My native language is Russian. I could understand it pretty well up to 1300, then only about 40% of the 1200 section (not at all the beginning, but the last paragraph was easier), then quite little after that - though I understood enough to glean that there was some woman who had showed up that caused the Master to flee.
I really got into reading Spenser's "The Faerie Queene" (about 1497) about a year ago, and I suspect that really helped me with this exercise, since he uses some language that was archaic even back then.
I really wish there was an audio recording of this story. I found the spellings in the earlier years more and more confusing.
- People used to take the Bible and other religious texts very seriously, and they believed in their literal truth -- far more than they believed in the truth of the Iliad or Charlemagne's Paladins. What's more, the Bible mostly presents something like a historical account with supernatural effects. So I'm not sure what we can draw from this.
> What is the first noteworthy piece of fiction set in a fictional land? "Alice in Wonderland", perhaps?
Maybe Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene? Its connection to our real world is tenuous at best, I'd say.
- > People used to take the Bible and other religious texts very seriously, and they believed in their literal truth
I don't disagree. But in a world where even reality was very much a mystery (so you had myths of ancient lost civilizations, cities of gold, etc and so forth), maybe religion, as literal as it was taken, was enough to satisfy the common people with its otherworldly descriptions of places.
My point is that I think it is natural that as the world becomes less mysterious and religion becomes increasingly seen as allegorical, the craving for fictional worlds where not all is known becomes more appealing.
> Maybe Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene? Its connection to our real world is tenuous at best, I'd say.
Maybe the oldes I can think of is the land of Avalon in Athurian legend? Still would have a tenuous connection to the real world.
- I’ve been reading “Deschooling Society” by Ivan Illich while slowly working my way through Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene”.
- Below is one of the definitions for "else" in the online edition of the Oxford English Dictionary followed by some of the citations. Some are archaic and some are from poetry, but the last two citations seem to indicate fairly recent colloquial usage.
3.a. In another case, under other circumstances; otherwise, on any other supposition; if not. Now usually preceded by or: see or else at or conj.1 6.
a1225 (c1200) Vices & Virtues (1888) 27 (MED) All ȝelief ðu fastliche, elles ðu, ne namann ne mai bien ȝeboreȝen. a1375 (c1350) William of Palerne (1867) l. 1647 (MED) Foule þow me fodest wiþ þi faire wordes, elles had i deide for duel. 1570 T. Tusser Hundreth Good Pointes Husbandry (new ed.) f. 19 Where Iuie embraceth the tree very sore, kill Iuie, or tree else will adle no more. 1590 E. Spenser Faerie Queene i. i. sig. A5v Strangle her, els she sure will strangle thee. 1837 J. H. Newman Parochial Serm. (ed. 3) I. v. 115 Else how should any one be saved? 1873 R. Browning Red Cotton Night-cap Country ii. 115 Boughs above, Darken, deform the path, else sun would streak. 1938 H. L. Mencken Diary 10 Aug. (1989) 112 Black has told friends that this indicates to him that Reed must be a trimmer, else he would not be favored by all parties. 2013 L. Powell Witch Fire xvii. 155 Shut up, else I'll only make it worse for you. Both of you.
And here are a few citations I found by searching at Project Gutenberg:
They were, in fact, beatified bees, who had to be solemnly invited to attend the death mass when the owner died, else they would fly away, refusing to stay.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14036/14036-h/14036-h.htm
“now, I hope, my trial is ended; else its length will be, as in some other cases, the worst of punishments.”
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9414/9414-h/9414-h.htm
It is absolutely necessary that the plate be chemically clean all over, else the film of collodion, upon drying, will split, and the negative be spoilt.
- I have a stupid fascination with historical finance in literature myself. I focused on Early Modern Elizabethan literature. Wrote a thesis arguing that Spenser's Mammon in Book II of the Faerie Queene was not so much about the familiar allegory of illicit wealth but rather a vitriolic topical attack on the emerging proto-capitalist financial industry in Elizabethan England and the challenge it presented to the traditional landed aristocracy. The earliest bankers were the goldsmiths and that, if you read closely, is how Spenser depicts Mammon.
A lot of fun and led me down some interesting rabbit holes on Elizabethan monetary policy, the impact of Henry VIII's Great Debasement, and the role of the Royal Mint as central bank. Left with with a deep appreciation for the stabilizing influence of the Federal Reserve.
Anyway, for anyone interested (haha), here's the canto in question:
http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?action=GET&tex...
