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For Spenser in the nursery consult the scholarly entry, 'The Faerie Queene, children's versions' in the never-too-much consulted SPENSER ENCYCLOPEDIA. Bert Hamilton At 04:18 PM 10/10/2003 -0400, you wrote: >This may not be the book of which CSL was thinking, although the timing is >right. I first came to Spenser through a book called "Una and the Red >Cross Knight" that had beautiful color pictures and little or no theology. >I remember her lion particularly. Somewhere Lewis has a passage on how >when we think about sources and influences etc. etc. we forget the degree >to which many people are influenced, shaped, by books they later might not >care to mention at the dinner table or in class (I'd say conferences, but >that's new). Works for me. Something else, though: this may be way too >subjective, but I've always thought of Harvey's hobgoblin as a bit of a >rustic satyr with goatlegs etc. and hence a Marsyas-like literary or >musical inadequacy. In that sense Harvey's criticism might merge rustic >folklore with Green myth and Marsyas (am I spelling him right?) might be >hoofing it somewhere around in the allusion. Anne Prescott > > > At 01:20 PM 10/9/2003 -0700, Jean Goodrich wrote: > >>I know that early on, Gabriel Harvey dismissed Spenser's "faerie project" > >>as "Hobgoblin runne away with the garland of Apollo." However, is anyone > >>familiar with a criticism that Spenser's topic was the "matter of the > >>nursery," (paraphrase) either by Harvey or a later critic (like C.S. > >> Lewis)? > > > > "Beyond all doubt it is best to have made one's first acquaintance with > > Spenser in a very large -- and, preferably, illustrated -- edition of The > > Faerie Queene, on a wet day, between the ages of twelve and sixteen; and > > if, even at that age, certain of the names aroused unidentified memories > > of > > some still earlier, some almost prehistoric, commerce with a selection of > > 'Stories from Spenser,' heard before we could read, so much the better." > > > > - C. S. Lewis, "On Reading The Faerie Queene," rpt. in idem, Studies in > > Medieval & Renaissance Literature, ed. Walter Hooper (CUP, 1966), p. 146. > > Illustrations, I'm guessing, must have been the big set done by Walter > > Crane, now available from Dover; as for "Stories from Spenser," I am > > guessing that this is a reference to The Gateway to Spenser: Stories from > > the Faerie Queene, by Emily Underdown (London: Nelson, 1890). > > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask] > > East Carolina University Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > >