(2) Our Norton edition of Spenser’s poems contains an essay by Judith Anderson considering the parodic possibilities of Book I of The Fairie Queene, and in particular the sexual punning and parody invited by the first canto’s opening line, "A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine." In an essay, discuss Anderson’s argument that the poem invites sexual parody. You might compare her analysis to those of other scholars who do not focus on this possibility. Or you might follow up the connections she makes to Chaucer’s "Tale of Sir Thopas" in a discussion of her argument. Or you might consider the scenes from Rocky Horror that we viewed in class in a comparative analysis of the use of parody in the two aesthetic productions.

(3 and 4) A Neo-classical theory of literary value, as expressed by the eighteenth-century writer Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his "Preface to Shakespeare," suggests that great literature is made up of those works which stand the test of time and of works which are true-to-life depictions of human qualities--"Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature" (Lives of the Poets, on reserve). Virginia Woolf, in the text excerpted in our Norton edition, makes a similar claim:

It would be absurd to pretend that we are more than intermittently conscious of the poet’s meaning. Yet as we read, we half consciously have the sense of some pattern hanging in the sky, so that without referring any of the words to a special place, they have that meaning which comes from their being parts of a whole design, and not an isolated fragment of unrelated loveliness. The mind is being perpetually enlarged by the power of suggestion. Much changes, with time, so that after four hundred years it still corresponds to something which we, who are momentarily in the flesh, feel at the moment. (MacLean and Prescott, p. 673) The question asks itself, then, how Spenser, himself imprisoned in so many impediments of circumstance, remote from us in time, in speech, in convention, yet seems to be talking about things that are important to us too?

(3) Choose one or more character or event from The Faerie Queene and argue for or against its literary value based on Dr. Johnson's criteria. Does the piece you have chosen reveal "universal" elements of the human experience? How?

(4) Argue for or against Woolf’s claim that the poem "seems to be talking about things that are important to us too." For this you will want to read Woolf’s essay carefully and consider her argument that the poem does remain important for modern readers.