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 plain, / Y cladd in mightie armes and siluer shielde, / Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remain, / 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, silver, 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 them, an explanation is provided in the useful list of Common Words at the back of the book.

Once you've used that 2-page list 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 Penguin edition, although it contains the complete text of 'The Faerie Queene,' is significantly without an Introduction, presumably because the editors felt that we don't really need one. The book does, however, contain stanza-by-stanza Notes. These have been placed at the end where they can be referred to at need, and where they don't interfere with the flow of the story as we experience it.

There have been many editions of 'The Faerie Queene.' Students who are studying the poem formally will want to have the fully annotated edition by A. C. Hamilton, a bulky edition with extensive and detailed notes, but in which the actual text of the poem is not so easy to read, being a rather poor and considerably reduced copy of the 3-volume Clarendon Press edition.

The Penguin has always seemed to me to be the best available edition for the general reader. As is usual with Penguins, it has a clear and well-printed text, and the Notes are just about right, being neither skimpy nor excessive. Though fat, it's not too big to carry around, and you may just find yourself taking it along with you on your next trip.

Spenser is one of England's very greatest writers. And he was writing, not for critics, but 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 if you hit a strange-looking word, don't fret or panic. Try to hear the word in your mind, and guess at its meaning. That will often help, but if it doesn't, Roche's list or his brief and excellent notes should.

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.

35 of 37 found the following review helpful:

Penguin is best edition short of Hamilton's  Jul 05, 2006
By Arthad
This is a review of The Faerie Queene, Penguin Classics edition, edited by Thomas Roche (ISBN 0140422072).

The Faerie Queene itself will not be to everyone's taste. It is probably easier than Milton, definitely harder than Malory, and parts of it are very accessible and parts of it are not very accessible at all. However, the language, which most will perceive as the primary barrier to Spenser's work, is not that difficult to get used to. Take Book I, Canto V, stanza 5, for example:

At last forth comes that far renowmed Queene,

With royall pomp and Princely maiestie;

She is ybrought vnto a paled greene,

And placed vnder stately canapee,

The warlike feates of both those knights to see.

On th'other side in all mens open vew

Duessa placed is, and on a tree

Sans-foy his shield is hangd with bloudy hew:

Both those the lawrell girlonds to the victor dew.

In line one, "renowmed" just means "renowned," and should be pronounced with three syllables: "re-nowm-ed," not "renowm'd." There is a difference.

In line two, the knowledge that Spenser typically uses "i" for "j" and "u" for v" is all readers need to read "majesty" for "maiestie." A passing acquaintance with Chaucer would help with line three, which features the Middle English prefix "y-" on "ybrought."

Line four: pronounce "placed" "plas-ed," not "plazd"; and just remember "v" means "u" for "vnder."

Line five presents no problems.

In line six, some readers might wonder why "the other" is contracted to "th'other." Here, a basic knowledge of English prosody is necessary. If Spenser had said "On the other side in all men's open view," he would have used eleven syllables, when his meter of choice, iambic pentameter, demands ten syllables. So he makes a contraction to stay within those ten syllables.

In line eight, Spenser writes "hangd" for the same reason: to stay within the ten syllables of iambic pentameter. If he had said "hanged," the sixteenth-century reader would have counted the syllables thus: "Sans-foy-his-shield-is-hang-ed-with-bloody-hue," which is eleven. Bear in mind that words such as "shield" are one syllable (sheeld), words such as "beauteous" are two syllables (beautyus), and words such as "disobedience" are three syllables (dis-o-bed-yence) for the purposes of scanning verse.

So much for Spenser's language. The content of the Faerie Queene might prove the greater barrier to the twenty-first century reader. If you don't like chivalry, knights, damsels in distress, hermits, and magicians, then you probably won't like the FQ. But if you are indeed blessed with a taste for "romance" in the old sense, then you should like Spenser. You might surprise yourself; a friend who doesn't read much old literature, and almost no poetry, read a few stanzas of the Faerie Queene and said she liked it. Granted, I don't know if she would have liked every bit of the entire thing. But in such a long poem, some parts will get boring. I loved Books I and II, didn't enjoy Book III as much, and then loved Books IV, V, and VI. Book V, with Artegall and his "Iron Man" who represents Justice, is quite good. And the Mutabilitie Cantos at the very end, as C.S. Lewis said, just might be "the finest thing in the whole work." But beware: the storyline is very, very complex. I found myself scanning previous cantos to recapture the plot line, which I'd lost track of. Be prepared to lose track of what's going on, unless you have an excellent memory or are used to old literature and complex plots.

Now for this particular edition. It's a very fat book (over 1,000 pages), and I wish it had been in two volumes (Penguin adopted that expedient in the Penguin Classics edition of Malory's Le Morte Darthur). Roche's text differs somewhat from A.C. Hamilton's standard edition of the Faerie Queene, but it's more than adequate for the non-scholarly reader. I found his notes extensive and very helpful. Spelling is barely modernized; Roche just changes the archaic long "s" to the modern one, leaving "v" for "u" (vnder) and "i" for "j" (maiestie) intact. Roche seems to be the best edition out there short of Hamilton, which costs about $55, and definitely the best for a first-timer. One recommendation: read Malory's Le Morte Darthur before the Faerie Queene. For one thing, if you don't like Malory, you probably won't like Spenser; and so reading Malory first could save you some time reading the FQ. If you do like Malory, then you probably will like Spenser; and reading Malory first accustoms you to knights and jousts and wizards and the typical machinery of Spenser. Also, knowing some Malory helps you catch some of Spenser's allusions to the Arthurian legend.

I give five stars to the Faerie Queene itself because I happen to love it; not everyone will share my opinion. I give five stars to Roche's edition because it's the best out there short of Hamilton, which not everybody needs.

37 of 40 found the following review helpful:

An edition for advanced students and Spenser enthusiasts.  Jun 13, 2001
By tepi "tepi"
EDMUND SPENSER : THE FAERIE QUEENE. Edited by A. C. Hamilton. 753 pp. Longman Annotated English Poets. London and New York : Longman, 1977 and Reissued.

The Longman Annotated English Poets edition of 'The Faerie Queene' has been designed primarily for students and academics, but will appeal to anyone who is looking for an extensively annotated Spenser which gives maximum help with the language, historical allusions, symbolism, allegory, and much else besides. In other words, this is not so much a reader's edition of 'The Faerie Queene' as one for those engaged in an intensive and in-depth study.

The pages are quarto sized (10 by 7.5 inches) and printed in double columns, with Spenser's text being given mainly in the left column, and the accompanying explanatory glosses and extensive and detailed notes given to the right. Hamilton's notes are, in every way, superb, and considerably enrich one's understanding of Spenser's subtle and highly allusive poem. The notes, however, are so extensive, that they can tend to interfere with one's enjoyment of the poem, as there is the constant temptation to glance to the right to read Hamilton's invariably interesting remarks.

Unfortunately, presumably to reduce costs, Spenser's text was not reset, and what we have been given is a much-reduced and rather poor copy of the Oxford University Press edition of 'The Faerie Queene.' The result is a poorly printed text of the poem in a font as miniscule as that used for the sidenotes, and hence one that can be tiring to read. The text of the poem is preceded by Hamilton's informative General Introduction, and the book is rounded out with an extensive Selected Bibliography.

Although less than desirable in visual terms, Hamilton's edition is superb in every other way, and definitely belongs on the bookshelves of all advanced students and Spenser enthusiasts. The general reader, however, would probably be far better off, certainly if new to Spenser, to start with the excellent Penguin English Poets edition, or even with the Norton Critical Edition of selections, details of which follow:

THE FAERIE QUEENE. By Edmund Spenser. Edited by Thomas P. Roche, Jr with the assistance of C. Patrick O'Donnell, Jr. 1247 pp. Penguin English Poets, 1978 and Reprinted.

EDMUND SPENSER'S POETRY : Authoritative Texts and Criticism. Norton Critical Edition. Third Edition. Selected and Edited by Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott. 838 pp. London and New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 1993.

30 of 34 found the following review helpful:

Most coherent and easy-to-read version of Faerie Queene  Dec 09, 1998

As a freshman student who is enrolled in English Literature, I needed all the help I could get,especially with English that is not modern. The Renaissance Version of the Faerie Queene is quite hard to read, and must be read over and over again before you can comprehend all the underlying themes and symbols. This edition, stated in modern English, makes the work so much more enjoyable and easy to understand. Not much is lost through this translation, and it has helped me greatly----especially for exams!

14 of 14 found the following review helpful:

A True Classic of Renaissance Literature  Jan 29, 2000
By x
The Faerie Queene is one of the great classics of Renaissance literature, and for very good reasons. Although it is difficult reading (and NO, contrary to another review here, it is NOT in OLD English! Look at the original version of Beowulf and you will see the difference), many of the tensions of the Renaissance, spiritually and philosophically, are masterfully renedered in these brilliant tales. Because its allegory is so rich, this book becomes even more enjoyable to reread, as connections between historical figures and literary history appear repeatedly. (I find something "new" each time I read it, it seems!) It is also a book about the role of the poet in society, and the manner in which Spenser uses allegory illustrates the complex relationship between the poet and his patron. In sum, while, as readers, we are always limited by our modern perspectives, I do think that reading Spenser is perhaps the best way to experience what it must have been like to be a Renaissance reader. Perhaps this is due to the didactic nature of Spenser's epic. In any event, it has forced me to explore more thoroughly the books and concepts to which Spenser refers repeatedly in The Faerie Queene. Furthermore, it has made my study of Shakespeare, Ariosto, Sidney, and other prominent Renaissance writers much more fruitful.

But don't buy the trade paperback edition if you are serious about reading Spenser--buy the edition of The Faerie Queene that is edited by A.C. Hamilton. While it is more expensive, it is by far the best text available of Spenser's epic, and contains useful notes and introductions that will guide all students of Spenser to a greater understanding of the greatest epic poem of the Elizabethan Age.

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