The Faerie Queene

Text:

Book I, Canto I from the RPO

Contexts:

• Spenser's biography @ the University of Cambridge

• Explanation of various literary terms and some useful notes on the Faerie Queene

• SparkNotes on the FQ

• Bartleby on the FQ

• An essay on Spenser's didacticism in the FQ

• An essay about the spiritual warfare in the FQ

• VoS links to Spenser resources

• Fun stuff: English Handwriting 1500-1700 course

• An intertextual connection – compare the first book of FQ with the 17^th century allegorical novel Pilgrim's Progress

Terms:

romance, knight errant, quest, allegorical epic, in medias res, epic similes, emblem books , Spenserian stanza, patronage, propaganda.

The English Sonnet

Texts:

Sir Thomas Wyatt

• “The Long Love That In My Thought Doth Harbour”
• “My Galley Charged With Forgetfulness”
• “I Find No Peace”

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

• “Love That Liveth and Reigneth In My Thought”

Sir Philip Sidney

• fragments from The Defence of Poesie (An Apology for Poetry)

from Astrophel and Stella

• sonnet I
• sonnet II
• sonnet XXXI

William Shakespeare

• Sonnet XVIII
• Sonnet CVI
• Sonnet CXVI
• Sonnet CXXX

listen to some Shakespeare's sonnets

Edmund Spenser

• from Amoretti (Sonnet I, XXXIIII, LXXV)

Contexts:

• Renaissance @ Luminarium

• Renascence and Reformation @ bartleby

• Fifteenth century changes in vocabulary @ bartleby

• Read about Sidney's Defense of Poesie
  

• Prosody from Chaucer to Spenser @ bartleby

• The Elizabethan sonnet @ bartleby

• The sonnet in England (by Noble)

• Wikipedia about the sonnet form

• Wyatt and Surrey prosody @ bartleby

• Wyatt's treatment of love @ bartleby

• Wyatt and Surrey comparison

• About Spenser @ bartleby

• Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" study guide by Cummings
  

• Internet Shakespeare Editions

• Shakespeare resources

• Listen to some Shakespeare sonnets @ loudlit

• Shake-Speare Sonnets @ Wikipedia
  

• Shakespeare study guides @ SparkNotes

• Shakespeare's sonnets @ SparkNotes
• Historical background: Elizabethan England @ Bibliomania
  

Terms:

Petrarchan sonnet, Shakespearean sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, terza rima, ottava rima, octave, sestet, quatrain, tercet, couplet, volta, heroic verse, blank verse, iambic pentameter, decasyllabic line, scansion, meter, stanza, Neoplatonism.

The Canterbury Tales

Texts:

• Professor Duncan's edition of the “General Prologue”, together with hypertext notes and voice readings.
• A side-by-side edition of the General Prologue together with glossary (Middle English adapted version and contemporary translation).
• A traditional edition of the Middle English version.
• A modern edition of The Canterbury Tales.

• Sound recordings from various parts of the text.
• Sound clips from a selection of English texts hosted by the Norton Anthology on-line edition.

• A basic Chaucer glossary.
• Have a look at Caxton's first two editions of The Canterbury Tales.
  

Contexts:

• Chaucer at the Luminarium site.
• An annotated guide to an on-line Chaucer study.
• The Voice of the Shuttle collection of Chaucer links.
• Chaucer materials.
• A Wikipedia article on the Canterbury Tales.
• Canterbury Tales at SparkNotes.
• CT at NovelGuide
  

Terms:

vernacular language, St Thomas Becket, frame story, heroic couplet, iambic pentameter, irony, fabliau, romance, Breton lai, exemplum, beast fable, physiognomy, theory of four humours.

Cuckoo Song

As a way of introduction to the beginning of the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, here's a post about a poem somewhat similar in tone to it.

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springth the wude nu-
Sing cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!

Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu:
Ne swike thu naver nu;
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!

Read a translation of the text here.

You can sing it, too...

Read a bit about it.

You might also want to compare it with some newer variations on the theme:

• Rudyard Kipling's
• T.S. Eliot's beginning of the Waste Land
• or his buddy's parody of the Cuckoo poem, as more applicable in this season of dark November:

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,

So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

(Ezra Pound)

The Pearl

Texts:

• original version

• a modern translation along with comments

Contexts:

• a Wikipedia article on the poem
• a Wikipedia article on the medieval usage of allegory
• the symbolical potential of fleur-de-lis
  

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Texts:

• To get to know the whole story read the prose translation which can be found in the Krzysztof Fordoński anthology (available in library): pages from 114 to 143. This is the Jessie Weston translation. You may like to compare it with the Representative Poetry On-line version
  

• For our meeting bring the translation from the Mazur & Bela anthology (available in library): pp. 32-41

• Also, read Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur (excerpts from the Mazur & Bela anthology, pp. 60-68)

• Excerpts from the Roman de la Rose

Contexts:

• Gawain study questions

• A Wikipedia article on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

• About Sir Gawain

• A Gawain project

• A Gawain study guide at Bibliomania
  

• A commercial reading of the Gawain story

• Luminarium

• About Roman de la Rose
  

• Medieval literature resources
• Read about the medieval context, such as food, architecture, music and science in those times
• The Age of Feudalism -- a study guide by Cummings
  

Terms:

romance, quest,courtly love (1), courtly love (2), chivalry, five cardinal virtues (purity, courtesy, piety, generosity, love of his fellows / fellowship), pentacle / pentangle, allegory, Alliterative Revival, stock, bob and wheel

Beowulf

Texts:

• F.B. Gummere's translation with additional info

• Another F.B. Gummere's translation

• David Breeden's adaptation
  

• Listen to Seamus Heaney's readings from his own translation of Beowulf (to be found in the Norton Anthology – available in Biblioteka)

• Listen to some Old English lines taken from Beowulf

Contexts:

• Norton background info on Beowulf
• Beowulf study guide by Cummings
• Beowulf at NovelGuide
  
• Norton study questions
• UCI study questions
• Some problems with translating Old English texts
• Seamus Heaney on his translation
• A host of links to further Beowulf pages

The Dream of the Rood

Texts:

• original
• listen to the original (you'll need RealPlayer)
• a modern translation by Jonathan A. Glenn
  
• a prose translation by Charles W. Kennedy (.pdf)
• side-by-side versions (original + translation) by Mark Leech and Carmen A. Butcher
  

Contexts:

• Jonathan A. Glenn's outline of the poem
• the historical context of the poem by Karl Young
  
• Anglo-Saxon literature
• A glossary of literary terms and definitions

Terms:
Cynewulf, the Ruthwell Cross, passion poetry, dream vision allegory, framework narrative, prosopopoeia, hwaet!, Celtic Christianity, Wyrd, elegiac tone, Ecce Homo.

Old English context

A series of Wikipedia articles concerning the context of the beginnings of English literature:

Ancient Britain
Roman Britain
History of Anglo-Saxon England


Old and Middle English places of interest and importance for literature.
source: Pat Rogers (ed.) The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature.

Caedmon's Hymn and Riddles

Texts:

• Caedmon's Hymn
• listen to a West Saxon version of Caedmon's Hymn (.mp3)
• Riddles

Contexts:

• About Caedmon
• The Cambridge History of English and American Literature
• BBC Anglo-Saxons feature

Terms:
oral tradition, Celts, druid, bard, fili (pl. filid), ollamh, Iona, Lindisfarne, Kells, Bangor, Celtic Christianity, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, runes, runic alphabet, Futhorc, charms, riddles, St. Augustine of Canterbury, Whitby, gleeman, scop [pron. shope], Deor, Widsith, elegiac, epic, kenning, caesura, alliteration, the Venerable Bede, Wyrd, Drihten