Marathon Reading of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene

In this three-day event – as far as we can tell the world’s second of its kind (the first was held in Tampere three years ago) – we will jointly read Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590/1596) and embark on a wild ride through a world of knights, dragons and magical creatures. We will thereby return poetry to its origins of being recited and enjoyed communally.

The event will begin with a mini-conference on Friday morning, with lectures by Dr Tamsin Badcoe (University of Bristol), the author of Edmund Spenser and the Romance of Space (Manchester UP, 2019), and others. These lectures will introduce you to the literary, cultural and linguistic contexts of Spenser’s work and thereby prepare you for the reading. The reading itself will begin on Friday afternoon and end on Sunday evening. Participants should bring a copy of The Faerie Queene to the event. Recommend edition: Penguin Classics.

Students, staff and other interested people are cordially invited to the mini-conference and the reading. Students wishing to attend the entire event can also book it as a 2-credit-point module (enrolment via Sisu or e-mail to Johannes Riquet).

Programme

Introductory lectures on Friday morning (10.00-12.30):

Tamsin Badcoe (University of Bristol), "'Navigating The Faerie Queene's Geographies (and the Importance of Getting Lost)"

Mark Kaunisto (Tampere University), “How Archaicke was Spenser’s Language? Examining the OED and Diachronic Corpora”

Kevin McGinley (Tampere University), "Spenser’s Monsters”

Johannes Riquet (Tampere , “'Replete with magick artes': Witchcraft, Magic and the Reader in Spenser's The Faerie Queene”

Marathon reading:

Friday 14:00-24:00, Saturday 9.00-24.00, Sunday 10.00-24.00

Attachments

the_faerie_queene_marathon_2022.png

Organiser

Johannes Riquet / English degree programme

Further information

johannes.riquet@tuni.fi