{"id":147,"date":"2024-09-24T20:49:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T00:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/?p=147"},"modified":"2024-09-24T20:50:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T00:50:08","slug":"book-iv-canto-xi-35-53","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/2024\/09\/24\/book-iv-canto-xi-35-53\/","title":{"rendered":"Book IV, canto xi, 35-53 (Sep 23, 2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time to get those rivers married! Finishing up the Hesiodic catalogue, Spenser\/the narrator told us that all the rivers \u2018that day in order seemly good \/ Did on the Thamis attend, and waited well \/ To doe their dueful service, as to them befell\u2019 (44). We discussed whether this catalogue is in fact orderly, the result of editorial decisions on Spenser\u2019s part (after all, why these rivers and not all the others?), or whether its river-like onrushing shows him, once again, at the mercy of the poem. One moment that does suggest an orderly, curated catalogue comes when the narrator brackets off Scotland with the \u2018Twede, the limit betwixt Logris land [England\/Wales] \/ And Albany [Scotland]\u2019 (36). This stanza began with the Tyne, another river in the north of England (think: Newcastle-upon-Tyne), and ends with the blood \u2018Of Scots and English both, that tyned on his [the Tweed\u2019s] strand\u2019, \u2018tyne\u2019 meaning perish in Scots\/northern English dialect<\/a>. There is a chiasmus in \u2018Logris \/ Albany \/ Scots \/ English\u2019, bracketing the Scots within the English (think: Scotland as internal colony [John Kerrigan]<\/a>). Scotland is one place colonist Edmund Spenser is not willing to go, though he does give us a preponderance of Irish rivers, including the Mulla, which flowed by his estate during his ten-year stay in Eire: \u2018And Mulla mine, whose waves I whilom taught to weep\u2019 (41).<\/p>\n

We wondered: is this a nature poem? Diana pointed out the geological specificity of the descriptions; yet, at points, culture overtakes nature as the narrator reflects on conventions of naming rivers, such as \u2018the stony shallow Lone, \/ That to old Loncaster his name doth lend\u2019 (39) or the multilingual \u2018Awniduff, which of the English man \/ Is cal\u2019de Blacke-water\u2019 (41). We considered the \u2018dewy\u2019 nature of nature in The Faerie Queene<\/em>: fresh, new, morning-lit. In the description of Medway, her silvery dress looks as if made of stars, yet is also clearly made of silver: the dress\u2019 sprezzatura, like the poem\u2019s, looks <\/em>effortless but also \u2018bewrays\u2019 its own effort, \u2018to let men plainely wot \/ It was no mortall worke\u2019 (45). Here, Idil noted that the onrushing movement of rivers pauses to allow for some tautological moments: \u2018Then came the Bride, the lovely Medua came\u2019 and \u2018her feet appeared plaine, \/ Her silver feet\u2019 (47). Progress pauses for beauty; we were moved. Finally, the narrator lists all fifty of Medway\u2019s nereid bridesmaids in a joyous (and at times surprisingly trochaic) display of metrical virtuosity, tiring out his Muse (53) but perhaps not his readers\u2014at least, not these readers. It may be that the pleasure of the Marriage of the Rivers is best understood by reading aloud, among friends.<\/p>\n

[EKL]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time to get those rivers married! Finishing up the Hesiodic catalogue, Spenser\/the narrator told us that all the rivers \u2018that day in order seemly good \/ Did on the Thamis attend, and waited well \/ To doe their dueful service, as to them befell\u2019 (44). We discussed whether this catalogue is in fact orderly, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4251"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/edspenser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}