I believe that it's Arya Stark who dislikes needlework, not Sansa. Of course this is a desperately important point to have noted in your excellent essay.
This quality of "great old works feeling weirdly modern" is something I've been encountering more and more, starting to think that the concept of "modernity" is fake.
"[...]and that the fashion in self-consciously self-serious literature rn (for various structural reasons, which i would like to write about, and which i am trying unsuccessfully to write about) is specifically to make things that people kind of dont naturally like…….on which…..more later….hopefully……"
i need to see this fleshed out please and thank you :)
Thanks for recommending Lewis on this! I've read snippets of that work but didn't know he had some literary analysis of Spenser in there.
A nitpick of mine (on my mind all weekend, and you brought it to mind again): it isn't "feminist" to have good female characters. (Kind of the opposite, if you look at how feminists prefer to tell stories.) Like all heresies, feminism plucks one or two Christian virtues (like the imago dei) out of context and overemphasizes them while de-emphasizing the rest of the worldview supporting and balancing them, a la Screwtape. Feminism is the off-brand, lame imago dei that acts like it invented treating women like people. No, Christianity did that. Now we read a Christian work and act all shocked that something we sort of recognize is present there.
I've seen scholars ponder Spenser's oh-so-odd variation of women in power... why are some so evil and some so good? Does he like powerful women or not??? Hmm, could it be that he's just depicting women as regular people who might make proper OR improper use of power?
Feminism is the political arm of a 19th century occult movement. Spenser isn't serving feminist mud pie, he's serving pie.
Sure, but I think there's a difference between treating women as people which has always been a Christian goal, & like, valorizing/sexualizing/romanticizing women performing male roles, right?
Iiiiii dunno, does that mean the Book of Judges is feminist? Occasional exceptions to the rule (women stepping into leadership when men are cowards) is different from arguing that gender roles are oppressive and should not exist.
Even first wave feminism was eating its own tail by saying, "Women aren't equal to men unless their outcome is identical to men." Any difference at all between us must be an oppressive construct.
Renaissance poetry is underrated as a source of RPG / video game content.
Patrick Stuart's deep dive into The Faerie Queen is pretty good if you want somebody to read along with. He just did the whole thing canto by canto I think?
I believe that it's Arya Stark who dislikes needlework, not Sansa. Of course this is a desperately important point to have noted in your excellent essay.
hahahaha outed for not having read game of thrones
You didn't miss much haha. First book is fun but there's no ending
Couldn’t get passed the affectation of not using capital letters.
This quality of "great old works feeling weirdly modern" is something I've been encountering more and more, starting to think that the concept of "modernity" is fake.
"[...]and that the fashion in self-consciously self-serious literature rn (for various structural reasons, which i would like to write about, and which i am trying unsuccessfully to write about) is specifically to make things that people kind of dont naturally like…….on which…..more later….hopefully……"
i need to see this fleshed out please and thank you :)
Thanks for recommending Lewis on this! I've read snippets of that work but didn't know he had some literary analysis of Spenser in there.
A nitpick of mine (on my mind all weekend, and you brought it to mind again): it isn't "feminist" to have good female characters. (Kind of the opposite, if you look at how feminists prefer to tell stories.) Like all heresies, feminism plucks one or two Christian virtues (like the imago dei) out of context and overemphasizes them while de-emphasizing the rest of the worldview supporting and balancing them, a la Screwtape. Feminism is the off-brand, lame imago dei that acts like it invented treating women like people. No, Christianity did that. Now we read a Christian work and act all shocked that something we sort of recognize is present there.
I've seen scholars ponder Spenser's oh-so-odd variation of women in power... why are some so evil and some so good? Does he like powerful women or not??? Hmm, could it be that he's just depicting women as regular people who might make proper OR improper use of power?
Feminism is the political arm of a 19th century occult movement. Spenser isn't serving feminist mud pie, he's serving pie.
Sure, but I think there's a difference between treating women as people which has always been a Christian goal, & like, valorizing/sexualizing/romanticizing women performing male roles, right?
Iiiiii dunno, does that mean the Book of Judges is feminist? Occasional exceptions to the rule (women stepping into leadership when men are cowards) is different from arguing that gender roles are oppressive and should not exist.
Even first wave feminism was eating its own tail by saying, "Women aren't equal to men unless their outcome is identical to men." Any difference at all between us must be an oppressive construct.
Renaissance poetry is underrated as a source of RPG / video game content.
Patrick Stuart's deep dive into The Faerie Queen is pretty good if you want somebody to read along with. He just did the whole thing canto by canto I think?
falsemachine.blogspot.com/search/label/Faerie%20Queen
"also an image of britomart as a young girl hating needlework, like sansa stark"
Arya, not Sansa.
EDIT: I see someone else pointed it out.
symp, you can watch me play dragon's dogma 2 when it comes out soon, if you'd like 👉👈