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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 821.3
EAN num: 9780140422078
ISBN number: 0140422072
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 1248
Printing Date: January 25, 1979
Publishing house: Penguin Classics
Sale Popularity Level: 72572
Studio: Penguin Classics
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
'The Faerie Queene' was the very first epic in English and one of the most influential poems in the language for later poets from Milton to Tennyson. Dedicating his work to Elizabeth I, Spenser brilliantly united medieval romance and renaissance epic to expound the glory of the Virgin Queen. The poem recounts the quests of knights including Sir Guyon, Knight of Constance, who resists temptation, and Artegall, Knight of Justice, whose story alludes to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Composed as an overt moral and political allegory, 'The Faerie Queene', with its dramatic episodes of chivalry, pageantry and courtly love, is also a supreme work of atmosphere, colour and sensuous description.
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Rated by buyers 
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While the publisher claims this is the very first modernized text of Spenser's poem, Robert Kellogg and Oliver Steele's 1965 edition of Books I and II, along with the Mutabilitie Cantos, is in modern spelling; has a much longer and (for its time) well-balanced introduction; has explanatory notes (just the right amount for the beginner) at the foot of the page rather than the end of the book; and provides easier-to-use marginal explanations of difficult words. (For that matter, the entire poem was issued in modern, that is, Victorian, spelling over a century ago by the Chandos Classics; the difference between Victorian and present-day spelling is nearly insignificant.) Still, Brooks-Davies and Everyman did a great service for beginning students by putting this more varied and up-to-date selection into print, and hopefully a complete modern-spelling edition will eventually follow. The one real and curious defect of this volume is that, while the purpose of a modern-spelling text is to help the beginner, Brooks-Davies' marginal glosses actually present an impediment to the beginner by giving TOO MUCH information, slowing his or her understanding of the text rather than speeding it up.
Rated by buyers 
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I am delighted, this is just like the one I read in college!
Rated by buyers -
I thought the reader did an excellent job. I had listened to the Canterbury Tales and I liked this even better. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in poetry. I think it is a must read or listen as the case may be.
Rated by buyers -
I will be the very first to admit that this is not a book for those that give up easily. At over a thousand pages of Elizabethan poetry, it took me almost two years to get through, and I am not a particularly slow reader. However, I don't want to completely scare away potential readers because it has also been one of the most rewarding books I have ever read. The story is always interesting and imaginative (and in such a long work that's saying something), most of the heroes and heroines are very sympathetic, and the imagery of poetry itself is breathtakingly beautiful. Though it was definitely a commitment to read, I have no regrets in taking the time to do so, and only hope that others will give it a try. Bravo, Edmund Spenser!
Rated by buyers -
This is a review of The Faerie Queene, Penguin Classics edition, edited by Thomas Roche (ISBN number 0140422072).
The Faerie Queene itself will not be to everyone's taste. It is probably easier than Milton, definitely harder than Malory, and parts of it are very accessible and parts of it are not very accessible at all. However, the language, which most will perceive as the primary barrier to Spenser's work, is not that difficult to get used to. Take Book I, Canto V, stanza 5, for example:
At last forth comes that far renowmed Queene,
With royall pomp and Princely maiestie;
She is ybrought vnto a paled greene,
And placed vnder stately canapee,
The warlike feates of both those knights to see.
On th'other side in all mens open vew
Duessa placed is, and on a tree
Sans-foy his shield is hangd with bloudy hew:
Both those the lawrell girlonds to the victor dew.
In line one, "renowmed" just means "renowned," and should be pronounced with three syllables: "re-nowm-ed," not "renowm'd." There is a difference.
In line two, the knowledge that Spenser typically uses "i" for "j" and "u" for v" is all readers need to read "majesty" for "maiestie." A passing acquaintance with Chaucer would help with line three, which features the Middle English prefix "y-" on "ybrought."
Line four: pronounce "placed" "plas-ed," not "plazd"; and just remember "v" means "u" for "vnder."
Line five presents no problems.
In line six, some readers might wonder why "the other" is contracted to "th'other." Here, a basic knowledge of English prosody is necessary. If Spenser had said "On the other side in all men's open view," he would have used eleven syllables, when his meter of choice, iambic pentameter, demands ten syllables. So he makes a contraction to stay within those ten syllables.
In line eight, Spenser writes "hangd" for the same reason: to stay within the ten syllables of iambic pentameter. If he had said "hanged," the sixteenth-century reader would have counted the syllables thus: "Sans-foy-his-shield-is-hang-ed-with-bloody-hue," which is eleven. Bear in mind that words such as "shield" are one syllable (sheeld), words such as "beauteous" are two syllables (beautyus), and words such as "disobedience" are three syllables (dis-o-bed-yence) for the purposes of scanning verse.
So much for Spenser's language. The content of the Faerie Queene might prove the greater barrier to the twenty-first century reader. If you don't like chivalry, knights, damsels in distress, hermits, and magicians, then you probably won't like the FQ. But if you are indeed blessed with a taste for "romance" in the old sense, then you should like Spenser. You might surprise yourself; a friend who doesn't read much old literature, and almost no poetry, read a few stanzas of the Faerie Queene and said she liked it. Granted, I don't know if she would have liked every bit of the entire thing. But in such a long poem, some parts will get boring. I loved Books I and II, didn't enjoy Book III as much, and then loved Books IV, V, and VI. Book V, with Artegall and his "Iron Man" who represents Justice, is quite good. And the Mutabilitie Cantos at the very end, as C.S. Lewis said, just might be "the finest thing in the whole work." But beware: the storyline is very, very complex. I found myself scanning previous cantos to recapture the plot line, which I'd lost track of. Be prepared to lose track of what's going on, unless you have an excellent memory or are used to old literature and complex plots.
Now for this particular edition. It's a very fat book (over 1,000 pages), and I wish it had been in two volumes (Penguin adopted that expedient in the Penguin Classics edition of Malory's Le Morte Darthur). Roche's text differs somewhat from A.C. Hamilton's standard edition of the Faerie Queene, but it's more than adequate for the non-scholarly reader. I found his notes extensive and very helpful. Spelling is barely modernized; Roche just changes the archaic long "s" to the modern one, leaving "v" for "u" (vnder) and "i" for "j" (maiestie) intact. Roche seems to be the best edition out there short of Hamilton, which costs about $55, and definitely the best for a first-timer. One recommendation: read Malory's Le Morte Darthur before the Faerie Queene. For one thing, if you don't like Malory, you probably won't like Spenser; and so reading Malory very first could save you some time reading the FQ. If you do like Malory, then you probably will like Spenser; and reading Malory very first accustoms you to knights and jousts and wizards and the typical machinery of Spenser. Also, knowing some Malory helps you catch some of Spenser's allusions to the Arthurian legend.
I give five stars to the Faerie Queene itself because I happen to love it; not everyone will share my opinion. I give five stars to Roche's edition ... Read More
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