It's difficult for me to discuss this one ... Spenser was actually the first poet I "liked" after spending much of my childhood thinking poetry -- which I now aspire to write, myself -- was "dumb." Well, okay, a lot of poetry IS dumb, but then so much % of anything is bullshit (I'm murdering "Sturgeon's Law" there). I didn't read The Faerie Queene, which I *think* is still, in its half-completed state, the longest poem in the English language, until much later, but hoo-ee, is it ever something. Spenser seems to have been a bit of a shit human being (if I am not mistaken his rep in Ireland is still, uh, problematic) but what a poet. I forget who said it ... it might've been C.S. Lewis or maybe it was A. C. Baugh in his history of English Literature (which I read around the same time as The Faerie Queene) ... but next to the golden landslide of Spenser even Shakespeare comes to look a bit like tinsel. I look forward to one day going through it all again ... hope I live long enough. ( )

Amateurishly rebound ( )

Oxford Standard Authors

It's somevvhat avvcvarde to bee reading yis in ye originaile stile ovf typpe. I neede to seek ovt an editiovn vvithe mavderne typographie, and vvitch davse navt svvitch ye 'v's and ye 'u's. (Or spelle 'Fravnce' vvith a 'v', for yat mattere.)

(Bye ye vvaie, did youe knovve that ye lettre 'y' is navt pronavnced 'y' bvt 'th', avnd is a printeres' svbstitvtte fovr ye 'thorne?' Novv youe doe.) ( )