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.