The Works of Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Works of Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition

Now index-learning turns no student pale Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.

So Pope in his day might sneer. But his eel has since grown to a Leviathan, a Midgarth serpent, and indexes, however akin to Dullness, are indispensable. Nor is the making of an index so dull as might seem. It is, in fact, a work of imagination and memory. At every entry the com piler must stretch his imagination to include every reason, however curi ous, which a reader might have for consulting that entry. He must also remember not only the satisfactions he has enjoyed in a good index, but the exasperating frustrations he has suffered from a bad one. There are rules for index-making, of course, but rules that leave plenty of room for the maker's discretion. However mechanical the process, it may both amuse and entertain.

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