Spenser: SelectionsClarendon Press, 1923 - 208 pages |
From inside the book
Page v
... things , the chief method in learning and the main interest in their own neo - Latin literature was imitation . To write prose like Cicero's , verse like Virgil's , was the ideal that animated them ; Greece and Rome had produced the ...
... things , the chief method in learning and the main interest in their own neo - Latin literature was imitation . To write prose like Cicero's , verse like Virgil's , was the ideal that animated them ; Greece and Rome had produced the ...
Page xi
... things . He would turn to allegory , since nature and circumstance denied him any share in drama , in order both to wring out for himself and to make evident to others the fullest measure of significance per- ceptible in the outward ...
... things . He would turn to allegory , since nature and circumstance denied him any share in drama , in order both to wring out for himself and to make evident to others the fullest measure of significance per- ceptible in the outward ...
Page xii
... or Mantuan . Beauty is something more than a theme for quasi - Platonic declamation ; it is a presence and a passion . His heart was in all these things . 10 and Cha 10 . Dra and the We t . A poli wi tha is it he an xii INTRODUCTION.
... or Mantuan . Beauty is something more than a theme for quasi - Platonic declamation ; it is a presence and a passion . His heart was in all these things . 10 and Cha 10 . Dra and the We t . A poli wi tha is it he an xii INTRODUCTION.
Page xiii
... thing . His poetry was a challenge to Greece and Rome , to France and Italy : it was a challenge also to Death and Time . Chaucer , the mediaeval man , accepted the inevitable end : But al shal passe that men prose or ryme ; Take every ...
... thing . His poetry was a challenge to Greece and Rome , to France and Italy : it was a challenge also to Death and Time . Chaucer , the mediaeval man , accepted the inevitable end : But al shal passe that men prose or ryme ; Take every ...
Page 3
... thing dost fain to see , In springing flower the image of thy day ! Ah ! see the virgin rose , how sweetly she Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty , That fairer seems the less ye see her may ! Lo ! see soon after , how more bold ...
... thing dost fain to see , In springing flower the image of thy day ! Ah ! see the virgin rose , how sweetly she Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty , That fairer seems the less ye see her may ! Lo ! see soon after , how more bold ...
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Common terms and phrases
Æglogue Aeneid allegory alwayes Ariosto Artegall beauty behold bloud Book bowre brest Britomart Canto Chaucer Colin cruell Cuddie daunce deare death delight dight doest doth dread dreadfull earth eccho ring Epithalamion excellent eyes Faerie Queene faire farre fayre feare flowres Gabriel Harvey gentle Goddesse goodly grace hand hart hath heaven heavenly Hesiod hight Hobbinoll honour immortall indeede knight Lady layd light living lovely band lyke Mantuan mote Muses Musick mynd nigh noble nought numbers Nymphes Ovid Petrarch pipe Plato poem poetry Poets powre prayse Prince rymes sayd Scudamour seemd seeme seemeth selfe shame Shepheardes Calender shew shyning sight sing sith song sore soule soveraine Spenser spide spright stanza Sunne sweet thee Theocritus thereof theyr things thou thought unto verse vertue Virgil warre weene whome whyche wont woods wyde yron
Popular passages
Page 3 - Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote delight a daintie eare, Such as attonce might not on living ground, Save in this Paradise, be heard elsewhere : Right hard it was for wight which did it...
Page 27 - I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such chimes of verse, as have never since left ringing there: for I remember, when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion...
Page 100 - And foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led, Joying to heare the birdes sweete harmony, Which, therein shrouded from the tempest dred, .Seemd in their song to scorne the cruell sky. Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy, The sayling Pine...
Page 72 - One day I wrote her name upon the strand; But came the waves, and washed it away: Again, I wrote it with a second hand; But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay A mortal thing so to immortalize; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Page 24 - If music and sweet poetry agree, As they must needs, the sister and the brother, Then must the love be great "twixt thee and me, Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other. Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Upon the lute doth ravish human sense ; Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such As, passing all conceit, needs no defence. Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound That Phoebus...
Page 179 - Queene, had bene by an huge dragon many years shut up in a brasen castle, who thence suffred them not to yssew : and therefore besought the Faery Queene to assygne her some one of her knights to take on him that exployt. Presently that clownish person, upstarting, desired that adventure : whereat the Queene much wondering, and the Lady much gainesaying, yet he earnestly importuned his desire.
Page 12 - Upon the top of all his loftie crest, A bounch of heares discolourd diversly, With sprincled pearle and gold full richly drest, Did shake. and seemd to daunce for jollity, Like to an almond tree ymounted hye On top of greene Selinis all alone, With blossoms brave bedecked daintily ; Whose tender locks do tremble every one At everie little breath that under heaven is blowne.
Page 170 - All in greene leaves, as he a Player were ; • Yet in his time, he wrought as well as playd, That by his plough-yrons mote right well appeare...
Page 157 - Doe eate the earth, it is no more at all; Ne is the earth the lesse, or loseth ought, For whatsoever from one place doth fall Is with the tide unto another brought : For there is nothing lost, that may be found if sought.
Page 176 - Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis : then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person of Aeneas : after him Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando : and lately Tasso dissevered them againe, and formed both parts in two persons, namely that part which they in Philosophy call Ethice, or vertues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo : The other named Politice in his Godfredo.