For your second assignment you will focus on some dimension of English Protestant culture, choosing between two texts (the Bible and Spenser’s Faerie Queene) and examining how these texts reflect historical shifts in religious belief or politics during the time we are studying.
1. Image and Textual Analysis. Select an image or series of images from Biblical illustrations and analyze the connections or disconnections between word and image in these examples. You should focus on a particular story (Adam and Eve, for instance) and work with images that are from the sixteenth century or earlier.
For the Bible, you should do some web searching of your own, as there are a number of resources online for early Biblical illustration, but here are some suggestions to get you started:
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/heavenlycraft/heavenly-16th.html
http://www.smu.edu/Bridwell/SpecialCollectionsandArchives/Exhibitions/First4CenturiesIllustratedBible
I also encourage you to compare different versions of early (pre-1650) Biblical translations if you are working on this topic. A great resource for this work is the BibleGateway, which allows you to compare several versions of the same verse at the same time. Look for the Geneva Bible, the Bishop’s Bible, the Great Bible, Wycliff’s Translation, Tyndale’s Translation, the Coverdale Bible, the King James Version, and other translations that were available to readers in sixteenth-century England (a great resource for this is http://studybible.info/version/…look for those listed under “Old English,” even though they really aren’t OE!).
Be sure to address the larger question of how these Protestant texts are using imagery and iconography in the telling of these stories. Do you see any contradiction between the sensational (literally!) imagery provided in these illustrations and the practices of sola scriptura and iconoclasm associated with Reformed Christianity?
2. Allegory and The Faerie Queene. Begin by selecting a passage or section of text from The Faerie Queene that describes an allegorical character, place, or event. Your passage could be a single stanza or it might be longer, but try to limit yourself to no longer than 6-8 stanzas of text. First, do some research on the allegory/allegories presented in the stanza using The Spenser Encyclopedia (available on reserve at the Sojourner Truth Library under my name/our course). Find out as much as you can about the commentary associated with your passage and how critics and readers have interpreted this allegory over time (you might also consult essays you find through the MLA International Bibliography, your text, or other editions of The Faerie Queene to illuminate your passage). Look, then, carefully at the passage you have selected and consider the language Spenser uses to present this allegory. Is it direct? Vivid? Metaphorical? Evasive? What in the language suggests this? Do you see the allegory presented clearly, or “darkly,” as he suggests in his “Letter to Raleigh.” Ultimately, what do you think you can argue about Spenser’s use of allegory in The Faerie Queene given the example of this passage?
Whichever topic you choose, your essay should make an argument or attempt to answer a central question or problem. It should follow MLA style for all citations and adhere to the guidelines outlined in my style sheet. It is due Friday, February 17th (you may e-mail your paper to me as an attachment or drop it off in the bin of my office door, JFT 220).