Welcome to the early modern period

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Welcome to the early modern period

• Literary Division
• Anglo-Saxon or Old English Literature
• Middle English Literature
• The Early Modern Period, aka The Renaissance
• The Elizabethan Age reign of Elizabeth I
  (1558-1603)
• Jacobean Age Reign of James I (1603-25)
• Caroline Age Charles I (1625-49)
• Commonwealth period (1649-1660)

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Early Modern Period

• Humanism
• Reformation

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Spenser
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The Fairie Queene

• Not a poem to solve, but rather to experience
• Exploration of abstract ideas
• Red Cross and Una are characters and concepts

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Fairie Queene

• The genres of the FQ--overview
• Epic
• Romance
• Allegory

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Genre--epic

• Long narrative poem
• Serious and formal style
• Heroic, perhaps quasi-divine central figure
• Tells the story of a nation, a tribe or even all
  of humanity

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Genre epic

• Spensers epic elements
• Begins in medias res
• Use of epic simile
• 1.2.16

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Genre--Romance

• Weve already seen some romance
• Auerbachs definition
• RomanceThe Letter to Raleigh
• To Fashion a Gentleman
• P. 716
• Archaic language

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Fairie Queene

• Proem
• The Poetic I (stanza one)
• Gloriana (stanza four)

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Genre Allegory

• A darke conceit
• Allegory and levels of meaning

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Fairie Queene

• Canto OneDen of Error
• Red Cross Knight I.1.1
• Una I.1.4
• Wandering Wood I.1.7 and I.1.10
• The Den of Error I.1.11 line 96 ff
• The Monster Error I.1.14 line 123

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Fairie Queene

• Canto OneDen of Error
• Red Cross Knight I.1.1
• Una I.1.4
• Wandering Wood I.1.7 and I.1.10
• The Den of Error I.1.11 line 96 ff
• The Monster Error I.1.14 line 123