Lovely, David. It was from you, at a Kalamazoo session, that I first
learned how to argue against a mere moralistic illustration of the
virtues rather than a more interesting interrogation, exploration,
whatever. And now you do chainlines and watermarks and a new edition,
which will get you saved to Spenser heaven. Anne.
On Oct 30, 2008, at 2:29 PM, David Miller wrote:
> Bill, that's a pretty interesting take on Redcrosse. For me, it
> makes sense because I think part of his struggle is to transform
> his faith from a joyless deathwish into an affirmation of life. I
> see this as present from the beginning, in the ambiguities of "dead
> as living ever him adored": like Duessa, there's part of RC that
> images the savior as a corpse and worships his death. And since RC
> is, for most of the book, named after the bloody cross that serves
> as an icon of that death, there are strong suggestions that his
> attachment to the savior is a kind of melancholy incorporation of
> the crucified body.
>
> Broadly speaking, I believe that the most interesting approach to
> Book I goes straight to its theology, even at an introductory
> level. Not as static doctrine, but as the language in which early
> modern Christians thought through issues to which we might give
> other names, using the terms of psychoanalysis or phenomenology.
> If you look back at Harry Berger's mid-60s essay on Book I, you see
> that he thought so, too: he's analyzing the allegory in terms
> borrowed from Reformation theology.
>
> David
>
>
> On Oct 30, 2008, at 2:08 PM, William Oram wrote:
>
>> Yeah, I think he will be saved, but it's not clear that he's ever
>> fully peaceful in mind. He despairs (or comes close to it) during
>> treatment in the House of Holiness, and then he wants to die when
>> he's made it up the Mount of Contemplation, and wants to die again
>> when the dragon's breath is heating up his armor, and by the time
>> we get to the betrothal celebration we've got many minstrels
>> making melody/ To drive away the dull melancholy. Perhaps that's
>> supposed to measure the distance he's traveled from the House of
>> Pride where the lines appear earlier, but I see the repetition as
>> suggesting that you never get too far from despair while you're in
>> this life. Bill
>>
>>
>> William Oram
>> [log in to unmask]
>> 413-585-3322
>>
>>
>>>>> anne prescott <[log in to unmask]> 10/30/08 1:37 PM >>>
>> As an addendum to my e-mail of a minute ago--Bill's cartoons are
>> wonderful and the one about the elephant patient is one I will use
>> next class as an addendum before we start Spenser's love poetry.
>> Bill
>> isn't Redcrosse sort of pre-saved? Una tells him he's chosen. I agree
>> he never makes it to the New Jerusalem (it isn't time, yet) or
>> marries
>> Una (too much work to do). Anne.
>>
>> On Oct 29, 2008, at 8:45 PM, William Oram wrote:
>>
>>> I spend two weeks on it in our thirteen-week survey course, so
>>> there's time to do all of Book I. Like Michael and some others I
>>> spend most of my time showing them how to read allegory, and I often
>>> begin with cartoons as a convention-driven picture-language (I used
>>> to use some wonderful old Herblock cartoons from the sixties with
>>> the personified bomb, and one, very relevant now, of an elephant
>>> lying dolefully on a couch staring at the ceiling and speaking to a
>>> man with a Freudian beard who is taking notes saying "Nobody loves
>>> me anymore.") But I don't think you can teach the allegory of Book
>>> I without attention to religion--or to what happens to Redcrosse.
>>> So I do teach it as concerned with salvation--though he never quite
>>> gets there. Bill
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> William Oram
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> 413-585-3322
>>>
>>>>>> Linda Vecchi <[log in to unmask]> 10/29/08 12:12 PM >>>
>>> When I teach our survey course (at second year, here) I teach Book
>>> I, although
>>> time rarely allows for us to read the entire book. I found that by
>>> focusing on
>>> Redcrosse, I could devise a reasonably coherent narrative/thematic
>>> thread and
>>> have our discussion of FQ connect thematically to the other 'heroic
>>> tales' we
>>> had studied during the term (Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Faustus). My
>>> students seemed
>>> able to handle the text well. In my senior seminar course I have
>>> taught Books 1
>>> and/or 3.
>>>
>>> Since our public school system suspended denominantional schools
>>> (Catholic,
>>> Protestant and Evangelical) only about 15 years ago, most of my
>>> students can
>>> relate to (and some even take umbrage at) the religious context of
>>> the work.
>>> In the years closely following 9/11, I also had some heated
>>> discussions about
>>> Spenser's (and Elizabethan England's) attitudes toward Muslim/
>>> Islamic
>>> characters.
>>>
>>>
>>> Quoting Marianne F Micros <[log in to unmask]>:
>>>
>>>> Sadly, I don't think it is much taught at all. Our first-year
>>>> course is a
>>>> 12-week one with little time! I'm wondering how many people drop
>>>> Spenser. I
>>>> teach some of the sonnets in the first year but work in books of
>>>> the FQ
>>>> (usually 3 or 5) in other courses.
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: Jean Goodrich <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Sent: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:13:57 -0400 (EDT)
>>>> Subject: Re: Book I in survey courses
>>>>
>>>> Besides demonstrating a more sophisticated use of allegory than
>>>> what
>>>> students will have seen in *Everyman* or *Second Shepherd's*, I
>>>> stress
>>>> Spenser's method of instructing the reader how to read as well
>>>> as the
>>>> disconnect between *seeming* and *being*. This allows us to look at
>>>> Redcrosse as in process of becoming Holiness, and not necessarily
>>>> there yet.
>>>>
>>>> I've also found an increasing lack of familiarity with the
>>>> religious
>>>> background, including things as basic as differences between
>>>> Catholicism and
>>>> Protestantism. Students will get the Una/Redcrosse/Archimago
>>>> confrontation,
>>>> and love the Seven Deadlies, but they'll completely miss the
>>>> significance of
>>>> Abessa/Corceca/Kirkrapine and the repeated occurrences of Pride
>>>> beyond
>>>> Lucifera.
>>>>
>>>> Jean Goodrich
>>>> University of Arizona
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 5:48 AM, Michael Saenger
>>>> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I spend most of my time on Book I as an exploration of how
>>>>> allegory works.
>>>>>
>>>>> Michael
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Quoting James Broaddus <[log in to unmask]>:
>>>>>
>>>>> How is Book I presently discussed in undergraduate survey courses?
>>>>> Back
>>>> in
>>>>>> my day, of course, it was discussed as the story of a fall and
>>>>>> consequent
>>>>>> redemption. Is it still so discussed in those courses?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Jim Broaddus
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Retired, Ind. State.Univ.
>>>>>> 2487 KY 3245
>>>>>> Brodhead, KY 40409
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dr. Linda Vecchi
>>> Department of English
>>> Memorial University of Newfoundland
>>> St. John's, NL A1C 5S7
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