Blog 3- Laura Rutledge

Spenser’s sonnet, Amoretti, demonstrates two contradictory (yet intrinsically related) viewpoints on women and lovers. In one sense, the narrator is resentful of Penelope and her womanly wiles. Unflattering words like, “deviz’d”, “deceave”, “subtile craft”, “conceave” are associated with Penelope, the object of the narrator’s love. He is being used and dragged along by her, and he knows it. Yet, he still calls her “my Damzell”. He pursues this love, even though he concludes the sonnet with the statement that his love is “fruitless worke” like a spider’s web, it is easily destroyed in spite of intensive labor. What is demonstrated is a prime example of unrequited, or imbalanced, love. The narrator feels an excessive amount of passion for Penelope, and although she continues to cut him down, he continues to put energy into their relationship that she barely accepts. The narrator acknowledges her cunning womanly power to break his heart, yet his unwavering love is what makes him continue down this fruitless road. The narrator hates to love her, but he still does.

Complex Relationships

Sydney Bernardo

In his sonnet Amoretti, Edmund Spenser uses imagery and singular actions to depict both the difficulty of building up a relationship and the simplicity of setting it back. The speaker, much like Penelope’s suitors in Homer’s The Odyssey, spends years wooing his lover and attempting to further their relationship. The main contrast between him and Penelope, however, lies in his role as the “active lover.” In this case, it is the speaker, and not the “Damzell,” who laboriously weaves together the different aspects - or web - of their relationship. He consistently makes the effort to build up the trust and care between them, having to “begin and never bring to end” the constant cycle of wooing, only to be spurned. Though the speaker does so relentlessly, the Damzell does not share the same feelings for him, is not ready to deepen their relationship, and instead uses any means to stall and set back his progress. Spenser uses the phrases “one short houre,” “one looke,” and “one word” to show just how easy it is for the Damzell to break down all the progress the speaker has made. However, this then raises the question: what one word has the power to spurn the speaker’s “whole years work?” In the context of the sonnet, the speaker may have proposed to the Damzell, in which case the word “no” would undoubtedly bring them both to square one of the relationship. The difficulty of nurturing love is astounding (though worthwhile?) and yet, ironically, it is frustratingly simple to break down the hard work and growth involved, putting a person through the same cycle and “web” repeatedly.

Post 3 - Ian Hecht

The language that Spencer uses in this sonnet highlights the futile and worthwhile experience of being in love. To convey the futility of love, Spencer begins the poem by referencing the passage in the Odyssey in which Penelope spins and unspins her cloth to deceive the suitors. He compares this reference to his own situation, “For all that I in many dayes doo weave/ In one short houre I find by her undone.” He then likens this experience to that of a spider spinning a web, “Whose fruitlesse worke is broken with least wynd.” In making these two comparisons, he is suggesting that the relationship with his “Damzel,” is one of work. All the references to spiders and webs suggest that he is trying to ensnare her, yet she foils his attempts with little difficulty. However, this is not to say that his efforts are not worthwhile. When he says, “when I thinke to end that I begonne/I must begin and never bring to end,” he is inferring that this is an endless cycle that he is powerless to halt. The only reason he would want to continue pursuing his love, or spinning his web, would be that it is rewarding for him in some way, similar to how Penelope spun her tapestry for years on end. Maybe it is the hope of finally catching his damsel that spurs him on; this parallels Penelope’s hope for Odysseus to someday return home. Regardless, Spencer uses The Odyssey and spider imagery to explain how chasing his love is both futile and rewarding.

Blog 3 - Carly Turner

Spenser’s pervading web imagery in his Sonnet XXIII reveals that, despite the strength and complex nature of love, it can be quickly and easily shattered by just one person. Spenser employs two primary analogies: he begins by comparing his love to Penelope’s deceitful plot to weave and unweave her shroud in The Odyssey, and he ends with a comparison of his love to a spider’s web. The two are quite different: Penelope’s plot, however deceitful, revealed the undying strength of her love for Odysseus, as she resisted the suitors and remained faithful to her husband who had been missing for twenty years. When Spenser describes the spider’s work, on the other hand, he uses words such as “fruitless” and describes a web that “is broken with least wynd.” The comparison of his efforts at love to a spider’s fruitless labor reveals the fragile nature of love, which is an interesting juxtaposition with Penelope’s story of her love’s strength. This apparent contrast displays the complicated nature of love, reinforced by Spenser’s continued comparison of love to a woven web, which is complicated by nature. There are no commas or periods in the middle of any line, which creates a cadence that reinforces the fluid, weaving imagery. The fact that Spenser chooses to end his sonnet with the comparison to a spider’s web cements the assertion that, regardless of love’s strength, at the end of the day it can be effortlessly “broken with the least wynd.” As Spenser’s experiences have shown, love is vulnerable to a partner’s caprice.

Leah Shapiro Blog 3

Although Edmund Spenser’ capitalizes certain words to emphasize a literal meaning, his word choice also possesses a deeper connotation. For example, the speaker first mentions how Penelope “Deviz’d a Web her wooers to deceave”; in this case, the web not only illustrates the image of a spider’s netting in the reader’s mind, but also depicts a sticky entanglement in which “wooers” can get caught. This initial emphasis on this word also creates the primary controlling metaphor, comparing a web to the speaker’s main issue: his lover’s annihilation of his life’s work. Next, “Such subtile craft my Damzell doth conceave” places an emphasis on the word Damzell. This mention stresses the importance of the woman in the speaker’s life, but also, and more deeply, references to this woman as a “lady in distress.” Spenser’s capitalization highlights not only the significance of the person but also her persona. Finally, the last verse reads that “Such labour like the Spyders web I fynd.” Though at first the reader relates a spider’s labor to the hard work of the speaker, a deeper reading uncovers that this final capitalized word refers back to the prior words, Damzell and Web. Throughout the poem, not only does each word possess a literal and descriptive meaning, but can also be symbolically and analytically scrutinized.

Blog 3 close reading

The poem focuses heavily on the unraveling of the tapestry by Penelope as an analogy for the author’s love life. This point is driven across by both his words and the unraveling nature of the rhyme scheme. Initially, he sets up the analogy in the first four lines by giving the backdrop of Penelope’s story. However, as the poem continues the line “For all that I in many days do weave, In one short houre I find be her undone” reveals the author as the weaver and his lover in the role of the suitors, who resists his work and tries to break the bond of his love. In fact, his feelings are unraveling themselves as she resists his feelings, until his work, and love, is broken “with least wind” as it has deteriorated throughout the poem. The rhyme scheme mimics this deterioration, with the rhyming lines unraveling into a longer patter. The pattern goes a,b,a,b,b,c,b,c,c,d,c,d,d,d. Thus, the consecutive rhyming lines build on each other, with a appearing only twice, b and c appearing consecutively at certain points, and an ending of d,c,d,d,d that gives the image of the poem unraveling into a repetitive sound seen in “rend”, “fynd”, and “wynd”. His passion seems to be, like Odysseus, full of twists and turns, using the analogy to Penelope and Odysseus to not only show the strength of the authors love, but also to reveal its fragility in the way his efforts unravel throughout the poem.

Blog #3

Do a close reading of the following sonnet from Edmund Spenser's Amoretti. Then, develop a single argument about the sonnet. You should think through thesis and antithesis first, so your argument should be a synthesis of the two, one that accounts for the full complexity of the sonnet. The observations you make in your close reading should substantiate the claim you make.

Sonnet XXIII

Penelope for her Ulisses sake,
Deviz'd a Web her wooers to deceave:
In which the worke that she all day did make
The same at night she did againe unreave,
Such subtile craft my Damzell doth conceave,
Th'importune suit of my desire to shonne:
For all that I in many dayes doo weave,
In one short houre I find by her undonne.
So when I thinke to end that I begonne,
I must begin and never bring to end:
For with one looke she spils that long I sponne,
And with one word my whole years work doth rend.
Such labour like the Spyders web I fynd,
Whose fruitlesse worke is broken with least wynd.