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(Hi! I'm a long time listener, first time caller, everyone.) I've used the Penguin for a senior-level seminar in Ren Poetry. I love the book, and I do probably because it's a diverse text with a complicated apparatus. The pages are numbered, and the poems are numbered. The thematic arrangement of the book causes much flipping of pages but also leads to serendipity (finding Birch's "come over the born bessy," poem #12, for example). I would use it again for the same kind of class. The book worked best when I took advantage of the ready-made juxtapositions instead of trying to fight the arrangement. My students learned to deal with the old spelling. There was some complaining at first, but after an experience with EEBO's scan of Tottel's Miscellany, the students were grateful to see anything printed in the last 50 years. Their louder complaint was that the book used endnotes, not footnotes. Hope this helps, Michael. And that's a brilliant observation about stdnt txting, Andrew. On this matter of teaching: I'll be teaching The Renaissance Period Course this fall. In the past, I tried to "cover" the period with lots of writers and texts, but for the fall, I'm considering focusing on three--possibly four--authors. Is this wise? Breadth or depth? Is the Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse the just the perfect thing for the period course, or should I go for the editions of specific authors? Or both? Best, Rob Kilgore University of South Carolina Beaufort On 4/9/2010 12:15 PM, Andrew Strycharski wrote: > I can't answer the general query, only having studented with this text, > but on the point of olde spelling: > > In my experience, it's not that much of an issue. Students tend to > acclimate quickly, though I've always offered some basic pointers, > depending on the edition. I've even had freshman read shorter texts that > maintained the i & u typography, and they got it. Most of them text, and > if they can figure out texting orthography, old-spelling is a walk in > the park. > > This semester I'm using Roberts' edition of Mary Wroth's poetry with > upper division students. The punctuation is causing a few headaches, as > is Wroth's often terse syntax (but that still causes me headaches!), but > the spelling, not so much. (On punctuation: as a class, we're > *beginning* to understand some of the logic behind what appears quirky > to modern readers.) And a substantive portion of my students at FIU are > generation 1.5 English learners, with a few genuine ESL students mixed in. > > -Andy Strycharski > > > Michael Ullyot wrote: >> Since we're talking about teaching (excerpts & topics), does anyone >> have experience teaching with Norbrook and Woudhuysen's Penguin Book >> of Renaissance Verse? Patrick Cheney predicts in the MLA's *Approaches >> to Teaching Shorter Elizabethan Poetry* (2000) that it "will likely >> become the preferred text [anthology]," as it has mine. >> I wonder if others can offer advice about selections, about mitigating >> the old-spelling effect (assign preliminary readings on early modern >> language?), about Norbrook's excellent introduction, &c. >> >> yours >> Michael Ullyot >> >> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> Michael Ullyot, Assistant Professor >> Department of English, University of Calgary >> 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2N 1N4 >> t: 403.220.4656 f: 403.289.1123 >> >> < http://www.ucalgary.ca/~ullyot/ > >> >> >> >