Spenser (333-0-20)
Instructors
Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez
Meeting Info
University Hall 312: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
Though he doesn't boast the name recognition of William Shakespeare or John Milton, Edmund Spenser holds the perhaps-dubious honor of having written the longest extant poem in English. His poem The Faerie Queene, published in two installments in1590 and 1596, clocks in at 34,928 lines—and remains only half-finished at that length. At once a Christian allegory, an Arthurian legend, a chivalric epic-romance, and a nationalistic paean to Queen Elizabeth, The Faerie Queene is a storehouse of material for a range of popular literature, including Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis's Narnia series, and (perhaps less directly) George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. Like the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, or the Brothers Grimm, Spenser's poem includes not only knights and ladies and fire-breathing dragons (though it does have those), but also the darkest elements of human psychology and behavior, on scales both personal and national, from suicide to genocide. In reading roughly half of The Faerie Queene, alongside selected supplemental materials, this course will use Spenser as a case study in how to approach literary and cultural materials that have the capacity both to delight and horrify us as twenty-first-century readers. What is it about Spenser's poem that has made four hundred years of readers value him as part of the Western canon? What are some of the political and ethical problems that are raised by his work? How do we weigh our responsibility to know and confront our cultural history against our loathing of some of the ideologies and behaviors that authors such as Spenser have transmitted to us?
Teaching Method
Brief informational or introductory lectures, but mostly discussion.
Evaluation Method
Regular class preparation and participation
Class presentations
Papers (argumentative essays based on close reading and literary analysis, rewrites allowed and encouraged)
Creative project / "un-essay"
Peer evaluation
Self-evaluation
Class Materials (Required)
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, second edition, ed. A.C. Hamilton et. al, Longman Annotated English Poets ISBN-13: 978-1405832816, ISBN-10: 1405832819.
Additional readings will be available for download from Canvas.
Texts will be available at: Norris bookstore.
Class Attributes
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area