wow i feel so clever and academic after reading this!! i absolutely love overanalysing literature and despite the fact that i am often confused by certain old, classic pieces of literature, you wrote this in such a concise and understandable way!! i'm excited to read more of your work <3
Thank you so much! That's so kind! I like your point about the language of the poem - it's easy to forget that Spenser's use of old/middle English spelling would have been anachronistic even at the time he was writing it. There are many reasons for this, but essentially Spenser was drawing on the contemporary idea of the epic. Essentially he was drawing our attention (with his spelling, this opening stanza, and many other moments in the text besides) to the process of the construction of an 'epic', asking us to look closely at it, and then parodying that idea by forcing us to acknowledge that it's not really real upon closer inspection. Unless you study the text, this commentary is sort of lost on the casual reader today who likely views these anachronisms as just a facet of an old text that they don't really understand, not realising that that is sort of the point. Spenser used this unnecessarily difficult means of writing in large part to point out how silly it is. In this way we can read this entire scene as a satire on the idea of the creation of great literature - the empty plaine representing a blank sheet of paper being elaborately pricked to create this iconic literary image represented by the knight, but which, upon closer inspection, doesn't entirely stand up to scrutiny, and which is mainly built up in our minds as opposed to what is actually on the page. Spenser evokes these grand moments of classic imagery, but if you look closely at the literal words on the page, those images quickly become weird and distorted as he deconstructs them using the very language he uses to evoke them in the first place. And this is how Spenser intended us to read it - by zooming out and zooming in again all the time, and allowing our perceptions of the body, gender, sexuality, race, theology, philosophy etc. etc. etc. to evolve with the imagery as we keep reinterpreting it. (I just wrote all that and I don't know if it really made sense or if I was just repeating what I said in the post only worse, but there you go, I just can't help myself haha). Anyway, I'm thrilled you enjoyed it! I'm definitely planning some more Faerie Queene posts for the future so stay tuned! ✨
wow i feel so clever and academic after reading this!! i absolutely love overanalysing literature and despite the fact that i am often confused by certain old, classic pieces of literature, you wrote this in such a concise and understandable way!! i'm excited to read more of your work <3
omg queen! you have literally made my day, that is so kind! and right back at you! 💕
Thank you so much! That's so kind! I like your point about the language of the poem - it's easy to forget that Spenser's use of old/middle English spelling would have been anachronistic even at the time he was writing it. There are many reasons for this, but essentially Spenser was drawing on the contemporary idea of the epic. Essentially he was drawing our attention (with his spelling, this opening stanza, and many other moments in the text besides) to the process of the construction of an 'epic', asking us to look closely at it, and then parodying that idea by forcing us to acknowledge that it's not really real upon closer inspection. Unless you study the text, this commentary is sort of lost on the casual reader today who likely views these anachronisms as just a facet of an old text that they don't really understand, not realising that that is sort of the point. Spenser used this unnecessarily difficult means of writing in large part to point out how silly it is. In this way we can read this entire scene as a satire on the idea of the creation of great literature - the empty plaine representing a blank sheet of paper being elaborately pricked to create this iconic literary image represented by the knight, but which, upon closer inspection, doesn't entirely stand up to scrutiny, and which is mainly built up in our minds as opposed to what is actually on the page. Spenser evokes these grand moments of classic imagery, but if you look closely at the literal words on the page, those images quickly become weird and distorted as he deconstructs them using the very language he uses to evoke them in the first place. And this is how Spenser intended us to read it - by zooming out and zooming in again all the time, and allowing our perceptions of the body, gender, sexuality, race, theology, philosophy etc. etc. etc. to evolve with the imagery as we keep reinterpreting it. (I just wrote all that and I don't know if it really made sense or if I was just repeating what I said in the post only worse, but there you go, I just can't help myself haha). Anyway, I'm thrilled you enjoyed it! I'm definitely planning some more Faerie Queene posts for the future so stay tuned! ✨