Part Three: Excerpts & Themes

Chapter One: The Renaissance Period

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

1) A gentle Knight was pricking on the plain, clad in mighty arms and silver shield

Note: Basic unit consisting of any various combination of stressed and unstressed or long or short syllables. Example: weak-strong-weak-strong-weak-strong-weak-strong-weak-strong. The poem is written in the stanza invented by the poet himself. The first eight lines are in iambic pentameter. The theme of this poem is to fashion a gentleman in virtuous and gentle discipline.

2) Bur on his breast a bloody Cross he bore, the dear remembrance of his dying lord. … And dead as living ever Him abored.

Note: Him refers to Jesus Christ. Cross refers to the true religion.

3) A lovely lady rode him fairy beside, upon a lowly ass more white then snow. Yet she much whiter, but the same hide under a veil that …over all a black stole she throw.

Note: White here implies holiness and the true sense of religion.

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