Concordance to the Rhymes CB (Manchester Spenser)

Description

This is the first ever concordance to the rhymes of Spenser's epic, The Faerie Queene. It gives the reader unparalleled access to the formal nuts and bolts of this massive poem - the rhymes which the author used to structure its intricate stanzas - and as such, the volume offers a unique insight into Spenser's creative processes and the tools of his trade. It enables readers to review the variety of Spenser's rhyming in a detail which has not previously been possible.

As well as the main concordance to the rhymes, this fascinating book features a wealth of ancillary materials, including distribution lists and an alphabetical and frequency listings of all the words in The Faerie Queene, which will be of value to professional Spenserians and students alike. It also features two groundbreaking studies by Richard Danson Brown and J. B. Lethbridge which consider the reception of rhyme, theoretical models and how Spenser's rhymes may be read for meaning, as well as the formulaic and rhetorical character of the rhymes.

A concordance to the rhymes of The Faerie Queene will be of particular interest to graduate students and scholars of Renaissance poetry, for whom the formal aspect of the poetry of the period has become an issue of increasing prominence.