earlymodernmusings-blog

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How to insult your readers, or, Sidney’s Porcupine (via anchora.blogspot.com.).

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Top: The Red Cross Knight saves the day by slaying an evil dragon, meant to imprison the King and Queen.

Bottom: A beautiful rendition of the fearsome beast! This scene comes from the 1921 May Day pageant, The Faerie Queene. Although the pictured newspaper clipping declares this knight to be King Arthur, according to the pageant’s program it is in fact the Red Cross Knight, who was saved by King Arthur from a Giant earlier in the pageant. The Red Cross Knight had set on a quest with the Princess Una, encountering faeries, nymphs, spirits, and satyrs, on the way to free Una’s parents from the dragon. This production was adapted from Spenser’s “Faerie Queene,” as a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Mary Woolley’s inauguration as President of Mount Holyoke.

(Photo and artwork found in the scrapbook of Eleanor M. Moore, Class of 1922!)

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Thomas Lodge nails the genre of the epistle to the reader in his “To the Gentlemen Readers” prefaced to Rosalynd:

“Gentlemen that favour most, backbite none, and pardon what is overslipt, let such come and welcome, I’ll into the stewards’ room and fetch them a can of our best beverage.”

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Double wedding ring, 1500s, with an engraving “What God Hath Joined Together, Let No Man Put Asunder"

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#TheFaerieQueen #History #Books #BBCFour Dr Janina Ramirez @DrJaninaRamirez The Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser The Secret Life of Books BBC Four

http://stratford-upon-avon-theatre.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/dr-janina-ramirez-drjaninaramirez.html

http://www.bwthornton.co.uk/a-midsummer-mouse.php

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I present an amazing example of dedicatory epistle barrel-scraping.

Josuah Sylvester, Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes And Workes (London: Robert Young, 1641), 3E3v.

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It’s International Poetry Day! What better day to celebrate the poetry of one of the women I celebrated on International Women’s Day? Aemelia Lanyer – first female poet to be published in the English language.

Click below for a reading of her ‘Eve’s Apology’, read by me. ‘Eve’s Apology’ (here meaning ‘defence’, rather than ‘sorry about that’) is an extract from the epic poem, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. It’s from the bit where Pilate’s wife is trying to persuade him to pardon Jesus, and Pilate thinks he can just wash his hands of the matter and put it all on the crowd.

Eve’s Apology: A Reading for International Poetry Day

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Chicago Cultural Center - Photo credit: Jennifer Min

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Professors at Newcastle University have reconstructed the inventory of William Corbett’s bookshop on this fascinating website, and, when possible, linked to scans of the books on EEBO.