This course will introduce students to two related subjects: a literary classic from the English Renaissance, and the linguistic study of syntax. Students taking the class will have an opportunity to become involved in The Spenser Project. The course will survey the syntactic structure of language, examining along the way some of the differences between the grammar of Modern English and the grammar of the English language of Spenser’s time. This linguistic study will be accompanied, and followed by, an examination of Early Modern English texts, focusing on Spenser’s most celebrated poem “Faerie Queene” and its unusual syntax (sentence-level grammar). When the first installment of The Faerie Queene was published in 1590, the modern concept of the “sentence” did not exist; no formal grammar of English had been developed. We will address basic questions of comprehension (how do we understand this text?) by trying to see how its syntax works.