Customer comments on this selection.
 Hard to say (2.5)
This second edition of Spenser's The Faerie Queene is massive. It's huge. It's a Titan of a book. Double-columned and small-printed, it's a 735-page extravaganza that abounds with meticulous academic footnotes - and get this - all in a humongous book whose size is exactly like one of those cumbersome science textbooks from high school. And the footnotes. I'm just gonna say that they are just way too detailed for a first read, though there are some helpful explanations and clarifying paraphrases of some lines. I think it's best to skim the footnotes and enjoy the poetry. There are, however, two footnotes that are too hilarious not to share:
Arthur sees a poor squire pursued by a formidable knight whose eyes are literally emitting laser beams (For from his fearefull eyes to fierie beams/...did proceed... (IV viii 39)), and Spenser describes the chase:
He all the way did rage at that same Squire,
And after him full many threatenings threw,
With curses vain in his avengefull ire:
But none of them (so fast away he flew)
Him overtooke, before he came in vew...
(IV viii 40)
And the footnote to lines 4 and 5 reads: "The squire is fleeing at supersonic speed."
Another instance is when a heroin sees her archenemy work a black magic:
That horrour gan the virgins hart to perse,
And her faire locks up started stiffe on end
(III xii 36)
And the footnote to the second line reads: "up started: stood up. A formidable sight for her hair extends to her ankles; see ix."
So yeah, these are pretty funny instances where you're not really sure if A.C. Hamilton is making fun of Spenser or just being dead serious. But anways, I digress. This book is not shy at all in its use of footnotes, and they are more for the academics who are interested in knowing what kind of academic papers are out there about the most miniscule things in the poem.
The presentation, let me tell you, is gorgeous. Quality paper, ink that doesn't come off (e.g., Oxford's Chaucer book uses cheap, dirty, gray newspapery paper with cheap ink that smears and comes off so easily that it turns your fingers all inky as you flip through the pages), and nice covers. But the question is: is it worth the $50? I'd say Penguin's $14 version is good enough for anyone with the balls to plow through 4000+ stanzas, and only after you plowed it through to the end and feel like you need MORE, then by all means, buy this edition, which will probably give you references to a lifetime of academic papers to read and fulfill your death wish.
On to the poem itself. GOD it's LONG. But it's not so bad, actually. Once you get used to Spenser's English and get into the rhythm of the poetry and story, it's enjoyable, because after all, Spenser chose the form of "historical fiction" to "delight" the reader. There are tons of stanzas where Spenser expatiates on the details of a scenery or a building, but they are bearable (except in Book IV, Canto XI where he describes all the rivers in England and Ireland, taking up a whole goddamn canto, and that makes it quite a 10 thick pages to enjoy). Overall, I think, the first book and the fifth book are the most fun (i.e. no homiletic descriptions of buildings and sceneries, and this terminator of a character in Book V is just absurdly invincible and fun to read about esp. when he decimates tribes and nations), and the rest are pretty good as well. I'd say Spenser is a mix of Chaucer, Malory, and Ovid, and takes the best from each, as he never forgets to keep the story going (there is always something happening, like Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, but none of his interminable digressions and formulaic monotony), keeps it real poetically (like Chaucer, but none of that Middle English difficulty), and seamlessly integrates various romances into a coherent whole (like Ovid, but none of his overwhelming abundance of characters).
So, all in all, a goodish ok read = 2.5
 A marvelous amalgamation
Spenser's marvelous amalgamation of chivalric quest-romance, Ovidian mythology, phantasmagoric allegory, and classical-cum-Renaissance epic comes the closest yet to a definitive edition in this reissue of A. C. Hamilton's Second Edition of the poem. (Second Edition still, according to the splendid and majestic new cover; Revised Second Edition, according to the title page; Third Edition, according to the Acknowledgements!) When Hamilton was tapped some 35 years ago to edit the original Longman edition, I don't think I would have deemed him the best person for the job, but I must admit that by this time his combination of expertise, wisdom, balance, and lucidity would be hard to beat. His introduction and extensive footnotes make an invaluable guide for anyone embarking on a serious exploration of this vast, 400-year-old world of words and wonders. As to the text itself, prepared by Hiroshi Yamashita and Toshiyuki Suzuki, it is certainly high time for Spenser once again to have editors who understand that their readings for Books I-III should, generally, follow the 1590 first edition rather than the 1596 reprint. On the other hand, it is absolutely unfathomable to me how they can have rejected so many revisions, extending even to entire lines of verse, which can only have been made in the 1596 text by Spenser himself. Fortunately, Hamilton always give the later reading in his footnotes, so this is a RELATIVELY minor complaint. Still needed is a complete edition of the poem in modern spelling: despite what you may read elsewhere, Spenser's spelling is almost never more archaic or eccentric than that of Shakespeare or other contemporaries, provided that they, too, are read in authentic old-spelling editions--but they almost never are, making Spenser seem much more alien and difficult to read in comparison than he really is.
Vast Improvement over the first edition
This is the second edition of the best version of The Faerie Queene available. It is a marked improvement over the first edition. For one thing, you can actually read the type. The first edition looked like it was mimeographed (for those of you who remember what that looked like). The layout is now much better, and the notes (on the same page and with the same size font as the text) and cross references remain indispensable for anyone not born in 1600.
But not exactly fun
I would have to disagree with the reviewer that called Spenser's epic "fun" to read... it is a lot of work, not only because of the length but because of the archaisms involved in Spenserian diction. On the other hand the work is definitely fruitful, one finds passages of indelible beauty and insight. For scholarly criticism I would recommend the Oxford edition ("Poetical Works") with an introduction by E. de Selincourt: he often points out just the stanza or two that helps place the entire poem into a new perspective. Make no mistake about it, the Spenserian stanza (ababbcbcc) is a difficult read, whether one is talking Byron's "Childe Harold" or Novak's "Requiem": in all cases (I would say) a significant amount of effort is required, simply to follow the train of the author's thought, which, because of the difficult nature of the stanza perhaps, is not necessarily clearly linear... but in the long run, MAKE NO MISTAKE the effort is clearly worth it, and Spenser, if not exactly conforming to one's expectations, will not exactly disappoint them either. A worthwhile read, even in bits and pieces, if you cannot adhere to the storyline as a whole.
 Poetry sinks under the weight of scholarship
There's no question that this is a lot of book for the money, and it's an essential volume for the serious student. The introductory matter is a disappointment, though; instead of guiding us into this massive work with a view to our gaining pleasure from it, Hamilton gives us a dense and barely readable collection of quotations from other critics and cross-references to scholarly papers. Many of the footnotes in the text suffer from the same kind of high-priestly scholarship, mixed with a tendency to ferret out sexual symbolism wherever it can be found. There is plenty of information in the notes to clear up the inevitable confusion modern readers must experience, but at times one wishes a giant could wield a club without being followed by a tribe of commentators chattering about phalluses and biblical parallels.
In short, this volume contains all that is good and all that is bad about "literary criticism". It is illuminating for those who want to dig deeper into the meaning of the poem, but it takes a lot of fun out of the reading. After all, The Faerie Queene wasn't written to keep academics busy; it was an entertainment, to be read aloud in groups, and to inspire wonder and laughter.
My advice to those who are new to Spenser is to read the poem quickly, without worrying too much about full comprehension, and referring to the notes only occasionally. You may be surprised at how quickly the antiquated language (much of it idiosyncratic even in Spenser's day) becomes familiar to you. First learn to love the flow of words, the characters, the action, and the humor; later you can come back for deeper study.
|
