Books I Loathed discussion
17th century religious poetry
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Sarah
(last edited Aug 25, 2016 01:58PM)
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Nov 27, 2007 09:35AM
The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost. Loathe and loathe. Thoughts?
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All I know is that The Faerie Queene is the basis for de Camp and Pratt's "The Mathematics of Magic", my favorite of the Harold Shea stories.http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42...
So I haven't read it, but my world would be poorer without it.
I'm not going to try to defend these, since I completely understand that they are acquired tastes, especially the Faerie Queene. Difficult to get into, though I love themHowever, 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.
The Faerie Queene NOT religious poetry? I understand that it's a love letter to Elizabeth, but it's also all about religion. Each knight personifying one of the Christian values, the castle of the seven deadly sins, etc...
I said not *strictly* religious. Of course it has huge religious themes, but to reduce it to that is to oversimplify and lose sight of a lot of other interesting issues. It is a "dark allegory," which only serves to complicate any straight reading applied to it.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...
Sorry to put a damper on your bashing. By all means, continue! I just felt obligated to make sure no inaccuracies were perpetuated.
My middle name is Arthur, and though I'd never before associated this name with any virtue, I'll henceforth slip 'magnificence' into any written correspondence I sign or cocktail conversation I engage in. Employers will be knocking down my door; women will swoon.My whole life will change. Thanks, Jason!
More to the point of this thread, I don't really loathe The Faerie Queen - it just bores me and I lose interest. Paradise Lost I studied in university, and it was great...in that situation. I don't know whether I'd pick it up again to read from cover to cover by myself, but I can still flip through it and enjoy several passages. 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...
Actually, Jason, while you have a good point, I was being much more direct. "The Mathematics of Magic" largely happens in the world of The Faerie Queene.^_^
_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.
Big deal. I put words into their mouths all the time. Look: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.
HAH - Bryan, that's great.
Rindis--that sounds awesome. i'll have to check it out...
You have made me laugh for the first time today!
Ha ha Bryan :)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.
