Study Questions for Spenser's Epithalamion
- What happens in this poem that hasn't happened in any of the other love
poems we have read?
- How is the kind of love in this poem different from the kinds of love we
encountered in Petrarch, Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, and Shakespeare?
- How would you describe the form of Spenser's stanzas? In what ways
are they regular, and in what ways are they not?
- Spenser liked numbers. How many stanzas are there in this
poem? What is the significance of that number? How many total
lines are there in the poem? Take that number, divide it by two, and
go to the line number at the midpoint of the poem. What happens there?
- How does Spenser document the progress of time in this poem? On what
day of the year do the events of the poem take place? What is the
significance of this date?
- What is the role of song and music in this poem?
- What is the function and significance of light in the poem? Where
does light come from? What happens when it gets dark?
- Spenser alludes to Orpheus (ln. 16), Tithonus (ln. 75), and Medusa (ln.
190). Identify these mythological characters and explain why they are
in a poem about marriage.
- In what ways does this poem follow Petrarchan conventions? In what
ways does it not?
- In what ways is this poem self-conscious about its status as a poem?