Spenser's Faerie queene. A poem in six books; with the fragment Mutabilitie. Ed. by Thomas J. Wise, pictured by Walter Crane Volume 4 - Primary Source Edition

The Faerie Queene Books #4

by Thomas James Wise

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Genres: Poetry

284 pages, Paperback

First published August 12, 2015

About the author

Thomas James Wise (7 October 1859 – 13 May 1937) was a bibliophile who collected the Ashley Library, now housed by the British Library, and later became known for the literary forgeries and stolen documents that were resold or authenticated by him.

Reviews

[Suzannah Rowntree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man. I love this book. I remember when I first read it, wondering how Spenser was going to make a rousing epic out of the virtue of friendship, and having my mind completely blown by how rich and full-orbed and glorious his perspective on this virtue was. The older I've become, the more I've come to appreciate the role of friendship in my own life, and re-reading this book there were so many passages where I just wanted to cheer. Absolutely one of my favourite Books of the entire epic, dealing with the relationship of friendship of all sorts to vice and virtue, romance and lust, and also featuring a passage that begins with an epic tournament and ends with the arrival of one of the contestants' sisters in a lion-drawn carriage to smack some sense into them, because Spenser was awesome.

[Meg Merriet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't believe the other reviewers who didn't even bother to write anything. Book 4 is amazing. There's a crazy tournament where all the knights wreck each other for days, shape-shifting witches who trick a pair of inconstant manwhores into being their steady boyfriends by changing form every day, and we finally get some closure with Florimell's plotline. Ultimate moral of Book 4: Friendship is magic.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I attended a symposium on The Faerie Queene this time last year. Apart from one talk, all the early-stage academics focused on Book One: a note to anyone who fancies going into Spenser research: later books haven't been done anything like as much.

However, so far, I think Book Four Four I think is my favourite. Yes, there is an entire canto where he lists the rivers of England, allegorised as minor Gods, which he then follows with the rivers of Wales, Scotland, "And now to Ireland..." Okay, my eyes were slightly clouding over by that point.

There is another canto which seems to be the basis of the Black Knight sequence from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where two immortal knights keep killing each other, then they get up and start fighting again: I think that's intentionally funny; it's certainly actually funny.

Where I think it has the edge over the first three books is the allegory, which is somewhat heavy-handed in books 1-3, is light-touch. This is allegory as a combo of Book of Revelation, Ovid, and Thomas Malory, blended through a post-Reformation Elizabetholatry into something really quite fabulous.

Again, this might be the books I'm reading as well, but this seems to be the most LGBTQIA+ of the FQ so far.

If you've read this far into Spenser, you won't need my recommendation, but I recommend it, especially as most modern FQs only get as far as Book 3.