I was also very interested in the rhetorical role that the tapestries play, especially in relation this portion of the canto’s narration. Though we’re seeing this scene through Britomart’s perspective as Emily notes, I think that the Spenser strong allusion (he’s not trying to hide his reference) to his source of Leda and the Swan complicates the poem’s ideas about authorship and narration. I wonder if the reference to the rape scene of Leda and the Swan story also shows the forceful power of narration and why this story is invading Spenser’s

In Book 1, I was struck by Spenser’s attention to detail and use of imagery–which would sometime span many stanzas, often making it more challenging to follow the plot. It seems, though, that when Spenser relies upon imagery and description he is directly invoking the use of sources into his poems, a technique that Chaucer and his contemporaries often used. In particular, Spenser uses the Mixed-Forest technique in the 8th and 9th stanzas of the first canto to describe the garden or forest. As the footnote says, Spenser is imitating Chaucer’s use of the rhetorical device, who originally got the idea from Ovid. Upon a closer examination of Chaucer’s use of the device in Parliament of Fowls (which I did last year for a paper in Professor Solberg’s Chaucer course), the mixed-forest serves a broaden purpose than simply idealizing nature, but uses the technique to represent broader ideas about love, philosophy, experience and knowledge. I wonder if upon closer examination of Spenser’s use of the technique if he falls more in line with Ovid or Chaucer. Finally, Spenser’s continual use of sources and classical and biblical references also further illuminates his and his contemporaries’ thoughts on invention vs. copia.