Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, a Prose Rendering, Volume 1 of 3: A Text-Faithful Translation of the 1590s Epic Poem

by Rebecca K. Reynolds, Justin Gerard (Illustrator)

Genres: Classics

348 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2025

Reviews

[Hannah Glass · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend gifted me the chance to read this new translation/rendering of Faerie Queene.

First, this edition is beautiful. It’s 3 volumes (this is just the first volume), hardback, with beautiful thick paper, lovely font, and illustrations that pull you in and illuminate some of the more fantastic fantasy elements. There’s several illustrations included that have stuck with me. Reynolds’ footnotes are helpful and engaging; I almost wished for more! (However I am more inclined to footnotes as a whole so that’s more of a personal preference)
I think Reynolds did a wonderful job introducing the text and walking with the reader throughout it. This is definitely accessible to all ages (although I would recommend reading with a teen as there are some adult situations that would be good to discuss). As to her faithful rendering of the text, I cannot speak to much as I’ve only read snippets of the original and I’m not well-versed in Elizabethan poetry. However as a 21st century reader who enjoys Elizabethan era history and literature, poetry, and source material, I found it quite satisfying.

Second, the text itself. This is early fantasy. You can quickly identify the scenes and characters that influenced later fantasy British authors such as MacDonald, Tolkien, and Lewis. On the other hand, you can see the influences on Spenser from other texts and stories (mythology, Scripture, medieval lore, etc.). Faerie Queene does feel like such a rich example of intertextuality while also being a unique, formidable work. I confess to not being much of a fantasy person, so some of the scenes took more effort on my part to engage. It’s also a poem rendered as prose so there’s some narration element that can feel lacking, but then again it’s also a 16th century work and that’s just different altogether.

One does need a basic working knowledge of Scripture, mythology, and British history to really get into this. However Reynolds does address parts of that and it would be easy to unfold those elements while simultaneously reading.

I learned and reflected much while reading volume one as the virtues of holiness and temperance (self-control and moderation) were explored in fairy land. I think Spenser does a wonderful job of exploring the pursuit of holiness and rejection of vice and sin through such vivid imagery and storytelling.

It’ll be interesting to see how Reynolds treats the next two volumes.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is the first volume of Rebecca K. Reynolds prose retelling of Spenser. Having never read the original, I can’t speak to how successful the adaptation is. My hunch is that adapting this poetry into prose would be a bit like adapting Beowulf or Gawain and the Green Knight into prose—I feel like some of the splendour has been deflated from the original, but we will see. So far, it is a strange book and I don’t wholly like its allegorical nature, but I’ll press on. Certainly I can see its influence on Lewis and others, and especially John Bunyan. Actually, I think a young lad who enjoys Bunyan and knight adventures would be the perfect audience for this.

[Mike]

No review, because the PDF from Netgalley had so many format issues that it was almost unreadable. I've studied this poem at university, and read another prose translation that I won as a prize at high school, so I was looking forward to it, but not enough to struggle through misplaced and missing phrases and intrusive watermarks.