Arontius of Bygelswade

.....Remember that long laundry list of 'stuff' I WAS going to get done today? Didn't happen. Not a single thing. Instead I ended up reading Tolkien's Lay of Beren and Luthien. Which inspired me to pick up and read some of my favorite parts of Edmund Spenser's 'The Faerie Queene'.

.....Shakespeare is pretty much considered the gold standard of Elizabethan poetry and prose by the modern educational establishment. You say 'William Shakespeare' to random individuals at Tacoma Mall and, if you didn't get arrested for being insane first, very nearly all of them could tell you who this person was and why they were famous.

.....But mention Edmund Spenser? Not so much so. Which is something of a pity. Don't get me wrong, reading Shakespeare (at least unedited Shakespeare :-)) is good for the mind and soul. But Spenser has a style and depth that Shakespeare doesn't have. Shakespeare CAN write Arthurian romance, but his style is more 'dramatic' than it is 'romantic', so it doesn't have the same kind of life that breathes in The Faerie Queene.

.....Although it sounds like I'm complaining when I really am not. It's like comparing milk chocolate made with cocao from Brazil and milk chocolate made with cocao from India. There might be differences to the chocolate expert, but to most it will still be a bite of CHOCOLATE! :-)

.....What all this IS doing though is inspiring me towards writing something a bit more on an epic scale (meaning epic as in style and length, without claiming epic as a measure of superiority :-)). Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene in iambic pentameter, but with a rhyme scheme of ABAB BCBC C. That's pretty tight. And in nine lines. Now imagine trying to carry that through an entire story. Definitely a much different mindset will be needed to pull something like that together versus individual sonnets.

.....Here's my start though, the first stanza. It will take a while to finish, but I'm hoping that once I roll into the pattern it'll start coming along a little faster:

From Eastern lands she came on fier'y steed.
The stars proclaiming her as pro - phet sent.
Built on a bedrock of renown in deed,
A Queene from lands afar would not be pent.

The fabric of this land of Norse was rent,
By tales forged in fire from our heros hands.
Swords of strength were left wheresoe'er she went,
As altars of rev'rence in all these lands,

As they are gathered into tight strong bands.

.....Give you half a guess as to whom the subject is. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.