Edmund Spenser's Poetry (Norton Critical Editions) [Paperback]

Although everyone has heard of Edmund Spenser's amazing narrative poem, 'The Faerie Queene,' it's a pity that few seem to read it. To a superficial glance it may appear difficult, although the truth is that it's basically a fascinating story that even an intelligent child can follow with enjoyment and interest.

It appears difficult only because of Spenser's deliberately antique English. He needed such an English because he was creating a whole new dimension of enchantment, a magical world, a land of mystery and adventure teeming with ogres and giants and witches, hardy knights both brave and villainous, dwarfs, magicians, dragons, and maidens in distress, wicked enchanters, gods, demons, forests, caves, and castles, amorous encounters, fierce battles, etc., etc.

To evoke an atmosphere appropriate to such a magical world, a world seemingly distant in both time and place from ours, Spenser created his own special brand of English. Basically his language is standard Sixteenth Century English, but with antique spellings and a few medievalisms thrown in, along with a number of new words that Spenser coined himself. The opening lines of the poem are typical :

"A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine, / Y cladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, / Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine, / The cruell markes of many a bloudy fielde...." (page 41).

If, instead of reading with the eye, we read with the ear or aloud, the strange spellings resolve themselves into perfectly familiar words such as clad (clothed), mighty, arms, shield, deep, cruel, marks, bloody, field. And "Y cladd" is just one of those Spenserian medievalisms that simply means "clad" or clothed (i.e., wearing).

The only two words in this passage that might cause problems for the beginner are "pricking" and "dints," and it doesn't take much imagination to realize that these must refer, respectively, to 'riding' (i.e., his horse) and 'dents.' But if you can't guess their meaning, in the present edition a quick glance to the right at their explanatory glosses will soon apprize you of it, and will save you the trouble of searching for their meaning elsewhere.

Once you've used the side glosses for a little while, progress through Spenser's text becomes a snap. And learning a few hundred words is a small price to pay for entrance into one of the most luxuriant works ever produced by the Western imagination, and one that once entered you will often want to return to.

The present Norton Critical Edition has been designed for college students, but will appeal to anyone who is looking for an abridged Spenser which gives maximum help with the language, and who might also like to read a little of the best recent criticism.

The first part of the book, besides giving almost 500 large pages of annotated selections from 'The Faerie Queene' which amount to well over half of Spenser's complete text, also includes a generous selection from Spenser's other poetry : The Shephearde's Calendar; Muipotmos : or The Fate of the Butterflie; Colin Clouts Come Home Againe; Amoretti; and the beautiful Epithalamion and Prothalamion. An Editor's Note exploring important issues follows each selection, and all obscure words have been given convenient explanatory glosses in the right margins.

The second part of the book consists mainly of a wide range of Twentieth-Century Criticism, and contains twenty-five critical essays on various aspects of Spenser, many by noted scholars such as A. Bartlett Giamatti, Thomas P. Roche Jr., Northrop Frye, A. C. Hamilton, Isabel MacCaffrey, Paul Alpers, Louis Martz, and William Nelson. The book is rounded out with A Chronology of Spenser's Life and a very full Selected Bibliography.

Criticism undoubtedly has its value and at times can be stimulating, but Spenser, as one of England's very greatest writers, was of course writing not so much for critics as for you and me. Admittedly his language can be a bit tricky at first, and he certainly isn't to be rushed through like a modern novel. His is rather the sort of book that we wish would never end.

His pace is leisurely and relaxed, a gentle flowing rhythmic motion, and that's how he wants us to read him. To get the hang of things, try listening to one of the many available recordings. And when you hit a strange-looking word there will be no need to fret or panic, for a quick glance to the right at its gloss will soon apprize you of its meaning.

So take Spenser slowly, and give his words a chance to work their magic. Let him gently conduct you through his enthralling universe, one that you will find both wholly strange and perfectly familar, since human beings and their multifarious doings are Spenser's real subject, and somewhere in one of his enchanted forests you may one day find yourself.