Books I Loathed discussion
17th century religious poetry
date
newest »

message 1:
by
Sarah
(last edited Aug 25, 2016 01:58PM)
(new)
Nov 27, 2007 09:35AM

reply
|
flag

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42...
So I haven't read it, but my world would be poorer without it.

However, I must correct a few things:
The Faerie Queene is not 17C, it is late 16C, making it a predecessor to Milton, not a contemporary.
Also, it is not strictly "religious poetry."
Rindis, you raise a great point for the lay reader: Fantasy fans owe huge debts to Spenser. Read my review of the Faerie Queene.


Also, each knight represents a virtue, not necessarily Christian:
Book I: Holiness
Book II: Temperance
Book III: Chastity
Book IV: Friendship
Book V: Justice
Book VI: Courtesy
Only Justice and Temperance belong to the Seven Holy Virtues of the church, which are:
Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Faith, Hope and Love.
Of course, I'm sure the church advocates these other virtues, but Spenser cites Aristotle as his source. What's more, Arthur--who appears in every book, but does not have his own story--is supposed to represent the virtue of "Magnificence." Whatever that means...


My whole life will change. Thanks, Jason!

In today's rush-rush world, we sorely lack the amount of time and concentration needed to read texts like these. Join a convent or a monastery and THEN pick up these texts. Ahhh...

^_^
_Paradise Lost_ is a magnificent edifice of an epic poem, borrowing heavily from Christian, Greek, and Roman mythologies. This is a man who PUT WORDS into Satan's mouth. Everybody does that. But he writes dialogue for JESUS and GOD. Now THAT, my friends, is creative courage.

Jesus: Oh, the humanity!
God: Price of free will.
Satan: F*ck you both.
There. I just saved everyone from having to read Paradise Lost.
Sorry.
Write GOOD dialogue and INTELLIGENTLY plumb the depths of the Christian conflict of an ALL-GOOD God and his creation of sinister evil and opportunities for humanity to f*** up big-time.
Write GOOD dialogue and INTELLIGENTLY plumb the depths of the Christian conflict of an ALL-GOOD God and his creation of sinister evil and opportunities for humanity to f*** up big-time.

I have not read Paradise Lost yet and I don't know if I ever will. I just finished reading Faust and it took me 4 years; I could not get into it. Faust and Paradise Lost sound similar to me. The poetic style is very difficult for me to digest. I like some shakespeare but only if it is comedy. Funny thing is I have the same trouble digesting Shakespeare tragedy as I had with Faust.