Okay, my task this week was to figure out why Edward Spenser loves his bride so much. To figure this out, I have to analyze the Epithalamion and a couple of his sonnets from Amoretti. My paper is due tomorrow and since I've been sick as Hell for two weeks, I am behind and just not feeling all that poetic. Besides, the early modern period is a weakness for me. I have never been that studious, and I tend to get bored very quickly trying to decode all of that by myself. But my professor is actually pretty good at showing us how to get through Wyatt and Spenser, and now I am starting to really like it. vroom vroom...

And that's why I think I have it! He's created this vision, this idea of love, much like he writes his poetry. He loves her because she is new, with lilly hands, and a white gown, and she is the picture of humility and innocence, just as a new piece of paper feels to the poet. She's like a blank page on which he can write his poem, or compose the plan of his life. He can give her ornamentations across the marriage bed like drifting flowers and swirling cupids, just as he likes to pepper his sonnets with Middle English and flat out confuse everyone. That is why he loves her...yeah, she's beautiful and all of that, but that's not really enough. He can use her for inspiration; she's a real live muse.

All this week I have been reading Spenser as if he was a truly devoted marriage partner. But now I am beginning to think he is just a typical man, and I have been misreading him. He really is in it for himself... He wants to write, and he needs a reason.