The second monument

I have noticed the arrival of that monument of unread literature, ‘Clarissa’, several times now. And I am happy to report that after two and a half months, I am now a little more than half way through. Clarissa has tried to escape to Hampstead and Lovelace continues to weave his evil plots, seemingly as much for the pleasure of plotting as anything. Although, thinking as I type (as often seems to be the way), he probably gets even more pleasure from writing letters to his friend Belford about said plotting. The worth of a good plot is much magnified by a good audience.

A plotting which I might say is better rendered on the printed page from Penguin than on the Kindle from Amazon. The Kindle certainly has its points, but sophisticated page layout is not one of them, and the funny layouts favoured by seventeenth and eighteenth century writers and printers, not to mention the likes of James Joyce, do not do well there.

But progress may be interrupted. A week or so ago I read the article built around Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’ at reference 2, snapped above.

Read to be intrigued – and moved to purchase quite reasonably from eBay. Intrigued in part by Spenser having been a middle ranking civil servant in the colonial administration of Ireland at the time of the Tudor attempt at pacification and with that experience being said to be reflected in Book V, the legend of Artegall, or of Justice.

Not get very far yet, but for someone who does not read much poetry, I find this poetry easy to read and the language much less obscure than one might have thought from reading Spenser’s contemporary, one William Shakespeare. But I have yet to spot any allusion to Ireland.

PS: the picture above is of the Redcrosse knight defeating the dragon Errour. An illustration provided by William Kent for the 1751 edition. I suppose Red Cross in the sense of crusader, rather than the people who provide bandages and wheelchairs. These last, once from a small house in our own East Street.

References

Reference 1: Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady: Comprehending the Most Important Concerns of Private Life. And Particularly Shewing, the Distresses that May Attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, In Relation to Marriage – Samuel Richardson – 1748.

Reference 2: The Triumph of Mutabilitie: Edmund Spenser’s long, daunting The Faerie Queen combines political allegory with some of the most flickering, ambiguous poetry in English - Catherine Nicholson/NYRB - 2021. Issue of 1st July.

Reference 3: The Faerie Queene – Edmund Spenser – 1590. My edition that in two volumes, of 1909 from OUP, via Parker's of Oxford, via eBay of San Jose, at the southern end of the Bay of San Fransisco. The sort of book which had to be cut by its first reader, in this case with a paper knife which was not sharp enough to do the job neatly. And the little blue sticker inside the front cover has no apostrophe.

Reference 4: http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/broad/buildings/south/26,27.html. Parker’s was once a long established book shop in Oxford. Now swallowed up by Blackwell’s.