Spenser and Milton

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Originally Posted by Jackson Richardson

OK, I’ve just read the first canto of Book 1 of The Faerie Queene. I read Barbara Reynolds’ translation of Ariosto a long time back and I think the best way for me to appreciate Spenser is to ignore the Protestant allegory (One – I’m not at all sympathetic to exclusively Protestant Christianity and Two – with its stress on sola scriptura, Protestantism tends to underestimate or ignore symbolism and allegory in any case).

So I’ll try to appreciate the poem as a poem and fantasy like Ariosto.

One obvious difference is that Milton proceeds in his narrative in blank verse, which allows his sentences and paragraphs of whatever length is needed. Spenser adopts a verse form that should be a terrible constriction –not only in stanzas, but stanzas he himself invented with an additional ninth line two syllables longer than the other lines. This should hold up the narrative flow dreadfully, but as far as I can make out, Spenser’s (complicated) narrative flows and the ninth line often makes a point.

I still think Milton is telling a better story, theologically suspect though I think it is.

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Exactly, I think Byron used it in the same way - a sort of conclusion or comment on the rest of the stanza.

However I do find the narrative occasionly held up or even trivialised by the form (I admit I've only read the Redcrossed Knight recently) in both Byron and Spenser. The allogorical content is kind of interesting, but you do have to keep turning to the index

I hadn’t thought of the comparison with Don Juan, but Byron could well be intending to parody Spenser. Mind you, the stanzas are different: Byron (copying Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso) has stanzas of 8 ten syllable lines rhyming abababcc. And he uses the rhymes themselves to comic effect as the opening dedication:

Bob Southey! You’re a poet, poet laureate,
And representative of all the race.
Although ‘tis true that you turned out a Tory at
Last, yours has been a common case.

Spenser’s stanza of 9 lines rhymes ababbcbcc. In each stanza he has to has to write at least four lines with the same rhyme without sounding forced or funny, which as far as I can tell (given the deliberately archaic diction) doesn’t happen. Quite a technical achievement.

I agree Milton is the more culturally significant at present, but I’ll write about that later.

Byron's Childe Harold is in Spenserian sonnet form (I'm reading it at the moment) He reverts to something else when Harold himself composes - for comic effect I would say.

I can't see how even with aristocratic Regency pronunciatioin you can read "laureate" and "Tory at" and make both the rhyme and the sense clear.

W S Gilbert was much better at outrageous rhymes:

It seems that she's a fairy
From Andersen's library.
And I took her for
The proprietor
Of a ladies' seminary.

Just browzed Childe Harold thanks to Gutenberg. It is in the same stanza as The Faerie Queene.

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Originally Posted by ajvenigalla

I'd say Milton may have been the grander figure

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Actually I’d agree with this, without giving in to the silly idea that there is some objective and ontological quality in a writer for all time.

By a whole number of criteria, Milton is the more significant and important of the two. He was and is far better known, more quoted and more widely read. Historically in Britain he brought an element of high culture which was embraced and admired by an evangelical, aspirational working class, when their aspirations were for social justice for all rather than becoming a home owner. I can imagine Paradise Lost on the bookshelf of D H Lawrence’s mother and thousands like her, alongside the Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress and Sacred Songs and Solos.

Dr Johnson said of Paradise Lost “But original deficiencie cannot be supplied. The want of human interest is always felt”. In my view that applies better to The Faerie Queene. None of the figures seem to have any inner life or personality: Knights fight monsters, ladies bewail, villains call up wicked spirits and all good fun it is. But Satan, Adam, Eve and even the devils and angels have an inner life.

I wish some knowledgeable enthusiast for Spenser would come along and I'd be very interested to learn from them.

As far I can say, Spencer is too british, insular if you quote the nobel heads. While he may have used themes that are quoted indirectly such as fae there and there, knights (but then, so does Chaucer), editions of Spencer are extremelly rare in Portuguese, if any complete at all. The length of work may have something to do about it (but this never stopped Ariosto or Chaucer translations). Meanwhile, Paradise Lost is never out of shelves (the other poems of Milton are quite less know). This presence certainly adds up in Milton's favor over Spencer.

Has anyone who has posted to date actually read The Faerie Queene from beginning to end? I have never even begun it, keeping the principle of finishing any book I start and having been assured years ago that it was essentially unreadable. If no one else has really read Spenser, then maybe we should drop the (rather silly) inquiry about relative greatness and simply talk about Milton. Just a thought.

We can talk about books writers haven't finished, but not about books readers haven't. Now, now, that does not seem to be a fair critery.

Heh heh. Maybe not, JC. I just get the feeling there's been an element of pretending on this thread. I'm not directing that at anyone in particular. But I would like to know who here has read any of The Faerie Queene (and how much). Call me curious.

Pompey Bum: none

Next?

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Heh heh. Maybe not, JC. I just get the feeling there's been an element of pretending on this thread. I'm not directing that at anyone in particular. But I would like to know who here has read any of The Faerie Queene (and how much). Call me curious.

Pompey Bum: none

Next?

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I read it during my undergrad studies for an upper level course on Spenser, along with the Shepherd's Calendar, Prothalamion and Epithalamion (and probably some other minor poems too).

I later took a graduate course on the Faerie Queene as well, I think I still have back problems from having to lug around the giant edition I had. My tutors in university also forced me to read Clarissa. I think I got my education at a rather cruel and old fashioned institution.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

I read it during my undergrad studies for an upper level course on Spenser, along with the Shepherd's Calendar, Prothalamion and Epithalamion (and probably some other minor poems too).

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Yay Orphan Pip! aj would really like you to help him with his latest essay. :)

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

My tutors in university also forced me to read Clarissa. I think I got my education at a rather cruel and old fashioned institution.

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If they made you read Clarissa it was. I'm just kidding. Where Clarissa (and Pamela) are concerned, I am an innocent.

Next?

I've reached Book 2 Canto 1 today. As everyone has implied, it is nothing like as influential as Paradise Lost

I thought Canto 9 included a good bit (although the archaic spelling is another reason probably why Spenser is more admired than read). The wicked wight is Despair.

XXXIII

Ere long they come, where that same wicked wight
His dwelling has, low in an hollow cave,
Farre underneath a craggie clift ypight,
Darke, dolefull, drearie, like a greedy grave,
That still for carrion carcases doth crave:
On top whereof aye dwelt the ghastly Owle,
Shrieking his balefull note, which ever drave
Far from that haunt all other chearefull fowle;
And all about it wandring ghostes did waile and howle.

XXXIV

And all about old stockes and stubs of trees,
Whereon nor fruit nor leafe was ever seene,
Did hang upon the ragged rocky knees;
On which had many wretches hanged beene,
Whose carcases were scattered on the greene,
And throwne about the clifts. Arrived there,
That bare-head knight for dread and dolefull teene,
Would faine have fled, ne durst approchen neare,
But th' other forst him stay, and comforted in feare.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Has anyone who has posted to date actually read The Faerie Queene from beginning to end?

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Even Spenser only got half way through it...

I'm reading it at the moment and was interested to share my thoughts in case someone more informed than I would care to comment.

Most of my posts have been about Milton. It can probably be said of The Fairie Queenewhat Dr Johnson said of Milton:

"Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure."