The Faerie Queene Critical Essay | Critical Essay by John Hughes

Critical Essay by John Hughes

SOURCE: Hughes, John. “Remarks on The Fairy Queen.” In Spenser's Critics: Changing Currents in Literary Taste, edited by William R. Mueller, pp. 18-27. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1959.

In the following excerpt, originally published in 1715, Hughes points out significant flaws in The Faerie Queene but also demonstrates its beauty.

The chief Merit of this Poem consists in that surprizing Vein of fabulous Invention, which runs thro it, and enriches it every where with Imagery and Descriptions more than we meet with in any other modern Poem. The Author seems to be possess'd of a kind of Poetical Magick; and the Figures he calls up to our View rise so thick upon us, that we are at once pleased and distracted by the exhaustless Variety of them; so that his Faults may in a manner be imputed to his Excellencies: His Abundance betrays him into Excess, and his Judgment...
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