How Eurocentric is your day? Nov 6, 2009
When our student reads the sonnets of William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser, she is little aware that the tradition of courtly love they celebrate comes via Provencal and the troubadours (derived from taraba, Arabic for "to sing") from Arab traditions of love, music and poetry. When our male student gets down on one knee while proposing to his fair lady, he might do well to remember this. (Asia Times Online)
T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" Sep 6, 2009
Edmund Spenser, Prothalmion. St. Augustine, Confessions. (Suite101.com)
The Eight Most Annoying Lyrics on the New Decemberists Album Apr 10, 2009
When Rock Stars Read Edmund SpenserThe eight most pretentious lyrics from the new Decemberists album ... What began on the 2002 debut as vaguely entertaining days-of-yore popcatchy folk-pop songs about prostitutes and pirates and has become an unbearable exercise in indie high-quirkiness, with each new release deepening the impression that Meloy thinks he's Edmund Spenser or, at least, the only rock singer smart enough to keep a copy of on his bedside plinth. (Slate)
The Birth and Development of the En... Mar 14, 2009
Her reign was during a period of intellectual excitement and enlightenment, with figures like William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser making names for themselves in what is sometimes called the Golden Age, the Elizabethan Age, or the English Renaissance. It was also a time of religious fervor: Elizabeth, as head of the English Church, was an important figure in the development of English Anglicanism -- and her intervention in Catholic Spanish-Protestant Dutch affairs helped lead England into a... (Suite101.com)
