The Dark Ages
Once again returning with faithful duty to a lost and forgotten classic, Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), and a forgotten genre for that matter, Italian Renaissance epic romance, I still wonder why no one ever teaches it. The obvious excuses are: inaccessibility, length, and warmongering or politically incorrect plots.Then again, thinking back, as an undergraduate student with a voracious literary appetite I was most perplexed when I asked one professor (a certain professor of Shakespeare) "Why?" He, who evidently had taught a course on the "Renaissance Epic" once upon a time, insisted Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso aren't important other than as mere footnotes to more notable English poems like The Faerie Queene.
I guess I shouldn't care anymore. No one cared then, and no one cares now.
posted by Davyth | 1:05 PM
2 Comments:
Ital Ren Epic is a fairly common course at the Grad level, but not at the Undergrad. I suspect this is because most professors now believe most undergradiants will not (a) be interested in the subject matter; and (b) be bothered to do the reading. Sadly, my own knowledge of this area is very weak, so I should not say too much. What I will note with more confidence, though, is that the more English Departments becomes "Cultural Studies" Departments, the more such material gets skirted and often ignored-- in favour, of course, of offering eight to ten courses per annum in theory and such. Our departments, as such, are very much in love with their own age, which may explain, I think, their general myopia. Even The Faerie Queene is largely treated in modern English Departments like the 800 pound gorilla in the room to be ignored as much as possible. Oy vey.
BTW, certain professor in question has matching initials and rhymes with "how smoochy," right? ;-0
Yes, Professor Smoochy. (A rather dark, sardonic comedy movie about a purple dinosaur, too *snicker*)
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