In the FQ at least, Spenser was playing off the forward tees.
CR
-----Original Message-----
From: Craig A. Berry [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: number of verses in FQ
At 10:30 AM -0400 7/19/03, David Wilson-Okamura wrote:
>Does anyone know of a convenient line-count for the various books and
>cantos of The Faerie Queene?
The list archives don't seem to go back to 1999, so I'll repost something I
posted then in reply to a query from the editors of the Oxford (or New
Oxford, or whatever we're going to call it). The columns in the list below
are word count, line count, and text name. They were derived by
programmatically counting what's in the Chadwyck Healey English Poetry
database. If you're interested, David, I might be able to resurrect the
program and count by canto.
A number of caveats are in order. The electronic edition I'm working with
transcribes from the Variorum only works in verse and the bits of prose
attached to them. So, for example, the word counts include E.K.'s
commentary to SC but exclude the published letters, except the verses that
appear within the letters are included under "Fragments." Word counts also
include headings, dedications, and so forth, plus a few extraneous things
like page numbers that were inconvenient to exclude from what I considered
to be a word ("characters separated by white space"). Line counts are not
typesetter's lines but rather enumerated lines of verse.
31914 2239 THE Shepheardes Calender.
4507 561 Daphnaida.
7545 955 COLIN CLOVTS Come home againe.
1919 234 ASTROPHEL.
856 108 DOLEFULL LAY OF CLORINDA
9251 1182 Fovvre Hymnes
2202 270 A THEATRE [for] Worldlings
5271 677 The Ruines of Time.
4499 599 THE Teares of the Muses.
5301 702 Virgils Gnat.
11381 999 PROSOPOPOIA. Or Mother Hubberds Tale.
3603 461 Ruines of Rome: by Bellay.
3342 440 MVIOPOTMOS, Or The Fate of the Butterflie.
1330 168 Visions of the worlds vanitie.
1677 210 The Visions of Bellay.
990 125 The Visions of Petrarch formerly translated.
9299 1158 Amoretti.
538 82 [Anacreontics]
3257 433 Epithalamion.
1371 180 Prothalamion.
421 53 Commendatory Sonnets.
404 35 Fragments.
44943 5637 THE FIRST BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QVEENE.
48802 6240 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QVEENE.
48443 6186 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QVEENE.
43747 5484 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QVEENE.
42128 5232 THE FIFTH BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QVEENE.
41117 5097 THE SIXTH BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QVEENE.
8555 1052 [THE SEVENTH BOOKE OF THE FAERIE QVEENE.]
2913 370 COMMENDATORY VERSES AND DEDICATORY SONNETS
--
________________________________________
Craig A. Berry
mailto:[log in to unmask]
"... getting out of a sonnet is much more
difficult than getting in."
Brad Leithauser
