21L.320 Class Home

21L.320 Big Books: The Faerie Queene

Fall 2011

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Instructor: Mary C Fuller

Class: T EVE (7-8.30 PM) (14N-112)

Information:

A chivalric romance. A national epic. A moral allegory. Warrior princesses, naked twins wrestling, King Arthur in love, and an apocalyptic vision of the time when change itself will be changed. All these coexist as a single poem in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590). The focus of this class will be on reading and discussion of Spenser's text, with plot summaries provided to keep the many, many characters in place. Work for the class will include informal journals, rotating responsibility for beginning discussion, one or two short quizzes, and an open book final based on short essay questions developed by the class.

Announcements

Tues/Weds

We will be meeting tomorrow night to talk about the Mutabilitie Cantos (very short!). Think about doing some kind of wrap-up/overview in your journals, if you're still working on them. Wednesday, we will leave from the Kendall Sq. inbound T at 3:05 -- and meet outside. We should be finished in Special Collections by 4:40, with refreshments to follow for those who have time. You won't need to bring any ID; you can bring digital cameras if you wish!

Announced on 12 December 2011 4:42 p.m. by Mary C Fuller

Reading for Tuesday

Dear all,

I didn't include this in my earlier email, but I had hoped that tomorrow we could also talk about the last two cantos of Book 4. If you haven't and won't have time to read them, we can work around; I don't want to jam you up by adding undoable work at the last minute, but in my view they are worth looking at. I'll read the journals tomorrow to see if they can be factored into our discussion or not.

Announced on 14 November 2011 10:48 a.m. by Mary C Fuller

Audio of Book 1

With thanks to Kevin, here is a link to an audiobook version of the poem:
http://librivox.org/the-faerie-queene-book-1-by-edmund-spenser/
Work for next Tuesday: read Book 1, cantos 1-v1; on the class wiki, post a page of thoughts, questions, and topics to take up in class no later than midnight Monday night.

MF

Announced on 13 September 2011 8:26 p.m. by Mary C Fuller