All ---
Now the focus has shifted from the sheer length of FQ to precise sums of lines. The obvious next step is: do these sums carry meaning? I'm aware that this question has been batted around, but I've lost touch with the pros and cons, so far as the big sums are concerned.
I'm convinced -- on the basis of some spot checking, nothing systematic -- that the number of stanzas in a canto is often significant, and cantos often divide into two significant halves, or (if the total is an odd number) contain a significant central stanza and a central line. And there are significant midpoints in whole Books of the poem; etc.
And it's been shown that Spenser was following precedents in his architectonics -- others are more up to date on this scholarship than I am.
Now, before I end: I'm aware of one oddity that will throw David's numbers off a little. If you look in Hamilton's revised edition of FQ, including the textual notes (p. 745), you'll see that III.vi.45.4 ("And dearest loue,") is defective (a half-line), and also that that half-line is absent from 1590 and 1596; it appears for the first time in 1609. How curious is this? Are there other instances of lines missing or defective?
I vaguely recall an observation somewhere that the Aeneid similarly contains some defective lines. Is some significance attached to these anomalies?
Let me throw in a comment on the 4-line "arguments" preceding each canto. As I recall, it's been suggested that these are not Spenser's but the additions of someone in Ponsonby's shop. I doubt that. Still, I'm not comfortable counting up those lines and lumping them into the totals: they seem integral to FQ as a book but not essential to FQ as a poem.
Cheers, Jon Quitslund
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: David Wilson-Okamura <[log in to unmask]>
> David L. Miller wrote:
> > Speaking of the list, a couple of queries: why no numbers for the
> > Odyssey? Do your number for the FQ include the Mutability Cantos? both
> > endings to Book 3?
>
> As of five minutes ago, there were 12,109 lines in the Greek text of the
> Odyssey.
>
> FQ numbers are more complicated. The total I gave came from a computer
> line-count that was posted here several years ago. However, digging
> around in my FQ notecards I find a canto-by-canto tabulation that I did
> a year or two ago (I don't remember why), and this produces some
> different totals, as follows.
>
> Stanza and line totals:
> -----------------------
> FQ I-III (1590) 1993 stanzas 17937 lines
> FQ I-VI (1596) 3732 33588
> Mut. (1609) 116 1044
> Total (1596+1609) 3848 34632
>
> Total number of Spenserian stanzas written for FQ (including 3 stanzas
> discarded from 1590 text of FQ 3.12) = 3851 (34659 lines).
>
> If one includes the 4-line legenda that preface every canto except 7.8,
> the line counts go up:
>
> FQ I-III (1590) 18081 lines
> FQ I-VI (1596) 33876
> Mut. (1609) 1052
> Total (1596+1609) 34928
>
> Total lines published including discarded stanzas from 1590: 34955. But
> when asked "How long is the FQ?" I will from this day forward answer
> "34,928 lines long."
>
> P.S. I put the stanza counts in a spreadsheet to do the math. If anyone
> wants it, email me privately at [log in to unmask] and I will send it as
> an attachment.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
> English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
> East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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