Book Description

Excerpt from The Complete Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser For the spelling, it is that of the original texts, but with three modifications: (1) the old use of capitals is made to conform to modern practice; (2) contractions are com monly expanded (e. G. Lo. To Lord); and (3) in some few cases, when the old division of words might puzzle the reader, it is disregarded - e. G. For thy (therefore) is uniformly printed forth g. The punctuation is modernized with care not to falsify the sense. The Glossary was built up on the principle of recording all words and phrases which in modern poetry would be obsolete or markedly archaic. Later, some of this material was transferred to the Notes. The scheme of division is that all words obsolete in form will be found in the Glossary, and such words, modern in form but obsolete in sense, as are of frequent occurrence. Rarer examples of modern words in obsolete senses will be found in the Notes, with due machinery of cross references. It is hoped that without much dificulty the general reader may be able to acquaint himself with the exact meaning of any word or phrase which puzzles him. If he is annoyed by the inclusion of much that he could understand unaided, he is begged to remember that one purpose of Notes and Glossary is to furnish an approximately complete list of Spenser archaisms. The debt of the editor of any classic to his predecessors must necessarily be great. That of the [resent editor was too great to be acknowledged in detail. To indicate in the Notes and elsewhere the source of every explanation or idea would have been to load them with the names of most who have labored in this field: all that could be done was to mark direct quotations. For some of the matter here ofiered for the first time he is further more indebted to various learned colleagues and friends, who helped him to what he could not find unaided; to others he owes much in the way of criticism and direct assist ance. His thanks are particularly due to the Principal Librarian of the British Museum and to the Librarian of Harvard College for the use of those early editions of Spenser without which he could never have undertaken the most important part of his work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.