The Faerie Queene (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

The literature of Spenser, unlike that of Shakespeare or other contemporaries, is almost always printed with the exact spelling found at at time. I guess this could throw a lot of people off course, but it really is just one of the many amazing elements of this book. As well as the fantastic and fabulous content, the reader becomes aware and synchronised with the linguistic element of such poetic beauty as well.

As an English student, I'm probably slightly biased about the accessibility of the book, but I'd only read a handful of plays from the late 1500s and early 1600s before launching into it. Although being vaguely familar with the syntax of the period, it was unlike anything I'd looked at previously.

But whether you intend to read the whole book from front to cover, or just dip into a few pages to experience the sheer poetic genius and brilliance, you'll experience great pleasure in doing so. It's also great to see this as a paperback version - although it's relatively large, it is portable (if that makes sense).

The Faerie Queene is, to my mind, the finest single work of literature in English. It's a huge, encyclopaedia poem that draws in and represents the whole psychological landcape of a highly-educated early modern individual with an extraordinarily fertile imagination. Its allegory tries to incorporate everything - from major cultural structures like the seven deadly sins and the myth of British descent from the Trojans to contemporary political intrigues and theories on the workings of the human mind and body. The poem goes from the heights of religious exultation to brutal representations of colonial power and imperial violence.

No review here is going to do it justice; I've read it several times and written about it a fair bit, but still can't imagine really feeling on top of it. Not everyone will like its dreamlike atmosphere and its frequently slow pace. Even the biggest fan will probably admit that long stretches of it are pretty tedious, particularly in the later stages. But the neglect it's fallen into is unforgiveable. Far too many undergraduates never get made to study the thing, and probably many who don't study literature at university won't ever try it. They should. There's nothing else like it and on its own ground nothing else can come close. In terms of density and richness of meaning, and of sheer proliferation of stories, it's an amazing work of genius that puts Spenser up there with Dante, Shakespeare and the rest of the world's very best writers. It's long and you need to put in a fair bit of effort, but it's worth it.

The way this book has been edited and organised is really rather clever. There is not much by the editor to be read before we come face to face with Spenser himself, but the material that would normally go into an editorial introduction is there after all, only it's at the back instead. If we are daunted by the thought of an enormously long poem there is a temptation to procrastinate by plodding slowly through some scholarly introduction, only to find ourselves wearied by the introduction and hardly able to face the poem. Meaning no disrespect to the eminent writers of introductions, I have experienced nightmares at the thought of some Penguin/Oxford/Faber Book of Introductions, edited (with Introduction) by John Carey.

We are not plunged totally unprepared into The Faerie Queene. There is a `manifesto' by Spenser expounding his aims in writing the work (or what he claims those to be): there are various commendatory sonnets and other miscellaneous stanzas by various other parties; and there are a whole string of dedicatory sonnets addressed to an assortment of bigwigs by Spenser himself. It is easy to skip most of these, and then if we are lucky we may find ourselves engrossed in one of the most readable and entertaining poems in the English language. It is written in a slightly bogus antique idiom, a little like The Ancient Mariner two centuries later. The idea is to create an atmosphere, and the style is nowhere near as difficult to grasp as in Paradise Lost let alone genuine mediaeval English as in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. Indeed, try opening the book at random and you may find the kind of magic working on you that Tolkien can work, except that great verse casts a spell of its own that not even my favourite prose can hope to equal. It purports to be a moral allegory, but moral allegories are boring and this is enthralling. Spenser knows how to spin a fairytale thriller, and you can't tell me that that was not what he really enjoyed doing.

The editor inserts for reference a table of dates and some suggestions for further reading before we have read anything, but I found the very brief `Note on the Text' to be rather interesting. It seems that there are three early editions, from 1590, 1596 and 1609, and that this edition is based on the 1596 text, with additional material taken from the other two sources where it is absent from that text. I certainly support the decision to include all the material that belongs in a purportedly complete version of The Faerie Queene, and the editor's apology for his `composite' text is courteous but quite unnecessary. However what I would have liked explained is why it has been decided to base our text here on the second of three early editions. Spenser died in 1599, so perhaps the 1596 text has been selected as incorporating his last thoughts and revisions. However this is no more than a guess on my own part.

Spelling and orthography are not commonly considered exciting topics, but if you agree with me (and with the editor if I have understood him) that Spenser is concerned to create an atmosphere with his pseudo-antique diction, then the spelling is all part and parcel. The way it has been done seems to me just about right. Plain annoyances to a modern reader such as tildes representing the nasals m or n are banished, but u v and i are retained where modern standards require v u and j. I cannot possibly regret that s is printed in the modern manner and not as f, as the latter could lead to quaint orthography in such cases as `Where the bee sucks there suck I'.

At the end there is an appendix detailing textual corrections, and another providing a handy list of common olde wordes. There are also `notes' on the verses explaining unfamiliar dictions and usages, but the most interesting items here are the longer `notes', which in effect provide much of what one would normally find in an introduction. I said already that I was relieved not to find this kind of material at the beginning of the book, so let me add now that I am thoroughly pleased to find it located where I do find it. After all, we have bought this edition in part (I suppose) because the editor is the Professor of English at Princeton. Spenser has provided the enjoyment, now it's time for the lessons.