Poetry and Fine Art Friday: Edmund Spenser
Spenser is most famous for his famously l-o-n-g poem, The Faerie Queen, which I, like 99% of the world, have never read. He lived in Elizabethan England, a contemporary of Shakespeare and a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh.
Spenser wrote the following poem, and my question to you is: what is the poem about? A hunting expedition? A woman? Both? Something else?
The Tamed Deer
Like as a huntsman after weary chase
Seeing the game from him escaped away,
Sits down to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds beguiled of their prey:
So, after long pursuit and vain assay,
When I all weary had the chase forsook,
The gentle deer returned the self-same way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook.
There she beholding me with milder look,
Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide;
Till I in hand her yet half trembling took,
And with her own good-will her firmly tied.
Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild
So goodly won, with her own will beguiled.
Giclee Print">The Hunted Roe-Deer on the Alert, Spring, 1867
Giclee Print
Giclee Print">Courbet, Gustave
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Hmm. I think both readings fit. Poor deer.
So glad you’re back in the blogosphere. I read your other post about your technical problems; you were definitely missed. Welcome back.
Um… I vote that this one is about a woman, simply because he didn’t say he’d shot her.
I guess we could say “poor deer,” but she did come back, trembling or not…
I think the first word is key: “Like” clues us in that the whole image of the hunter is a similie for something else. That the “gentle deer” is characterized as female and said twice to have a “will” seems to indicate that he is speaking of a woman – that fits. But I could be persuaded otherwise …
This is the way good ideas sometimes come to me. If I quit trying so hard and just sit quietly, there they are!
My English professor for this time period said that all of these hunting the deer type poems are about the pursuit of a woman. And, TadMak, even if the deer gets shot, well, let’s just say that is the ultimate conclusion of the hunt. Is that OK for a family blog?
From his sonnet series, Amoretti, it’s just another bit in the narrative of his pursuit of a woman’s love.