The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

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The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
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The Spenserian Stanza

• The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form.
• Each stanza contains nine lines in total eight
  lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single
  'Alexandrine' line in iambic hexameter.
• The rhyme scheme of these lines is "ababbcbcc."
• Spenser's invention may have been influenced by
  the Italian form ottava rima, which consists of
  eight lines of iambic pentameter with the rhyme
  scheme "abababcc."
• Another possible influence is rhyme royal, a
  traditional mediæval form used by Geoffrey
  Chaucer, among others, which has seven lines of
  iambic pentameter that rhyme "ababbcc."

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Genres of The Faerie Queene

• Epic
• Influenced by Virgilian tradition
• Mirrors contemporary European poets Arisosto,
  Tasso, Camoens
• Influences on
• John Milton, Paradise Lost
• William Blake, Jerusalem
• Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King
• Chivalric Romance
• Courtesy Book the moral formation of the ideal
  Protestant Gentleman
• Fantasy
• Influences on J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis
• Allegory
• Moral
• Historical
• Games of Illusion and Delusion watch disguises!

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The Faerie Queene

• Booke I The Legende of the Knight of the Red
  Crosse, or of Holinesse
• Booke II The Legend of Sir Guyon, or of
  Temperance
• Booke III The Legend of Britomartis, of of
  Chastitie
• Book IV The Legend of Cambel and Telamond, of of
  Friendship
• Book V The Legend of Artegall, or of Justice
• Booke VI The Legend of St. Calidore, or of
  Courtesie
• Booke VII Two Cantos of Mutabilitie

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Interesting Websites

• The Cantos of Mutabilitie a blog on
  Spenserhttp//mvtabilitie.blogspot.com/2008/09/fa
  erie-queene.html
• Luminariums Edmund Spenser Pagehttp//www.lumina
  rium.org/renlit/spenser.htm
• The Faerie Queene in modern English
  prosehttp//www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/sfq/inde
  x.htm
• The full text of Spensers The Faerie
  Queenehttp//www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/fq/inde
  x.htm
• Historical, biographical and allegorical
  informationhttp//en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Faer
  ie_Queene/Book_IIntroduction