Reading and not reading the Faerie Queene : Spenser and the making of literary criticism
(Book)
Author
Published
Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2020].
Format
Book
ISBN
9780691198989 (PAP), 0691198985 (PAP)
Physical Desc
vii, 311 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Status
Description
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More Details
Published
Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2020].
Language
English
ISBN
9780691198989 (PAP), 0691198985 (PAP)
Notes
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-298) and index.
Description
"Despite its canonical prestige, Edmund Spenser's epic six-part poem The Faerie Queene (1590-96) has never been easy or altogether pleasurable to read. As this book describes, the poem's first known reader, Spenser's friend Gabriel Harvey, did so under duress, and returned the manuscript with a plea that Spenser write something else instead. Virginia Woolf's tongue-in-cheek advice to twentieth-century readers eager to cultivate a taste for The Faerie Queene-"The first essential is, of course, not to readThe Faerie Queene"-sums up a tradition of readerly resistance to the poem. As a consequence of its difficulty, the poem has an extraordinary capacity to induce doubt in readers-about Spenser, about themselves, and about the enterprise of reading itself. Each of the six chapters in Nicholson's book considers the poem through the lens of a different readership: scholars; schoolchildren; compilers of commonplace books, who value specific elements about the poem; Queen Elizabeth, the ostensible subject of thepoem; and readers who, across the centuries, ultimately failed to understand the poem. Rather than tell us how to read Spenser's work, Nicholson describes how these individual readers, from learned scholars to precocious schoolboys, jealous queens to algorithmic search engines, have generated meaning and pleasure from an unusual and difficult text. Throughout, the author argues that that The Faerie Queene can be read not simply as literature but as literary theory, a reflection on what reading does to texts, readers, and the worlds they live in"--,Provided by publisher.
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Copies
Location | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Randolph Township Library - Adult Nonfiction | 821.3 NIC | Available |
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Citations
APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)
Nicholson, C. (2020). Reading and not reading the Faerie Queene: Spenser and the making of literary criticism . Princeton University Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Nicholson, Catherine. 2020. Reading and Not Reading the Faerie Queene: Spenser and the Making of Literary Criticism. Princeton University Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Nicholson, Catherine. Reading and Not Reading the Faerie Queene: Spenser and the Making of Literary Criticism Princeton University Press, 2020.
MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)Nicholson, Catherine. Reading and Not Reading the Faerie Queene: Spenser and the Making of Literary Criticism Princeton University Press, 2020.
Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.
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