Complaint and Satire in Spenser and Donne: Limits of Poetic Justice

Abstract

Challenging the familiar dichotomy that associates complaint with Spenser and satire with Donne, this essay demonstrates the workings of satire in Book V of The Faerie Queene and of complaint and allegory in Donne’s Satires, especially in the figures of water representing poetry and political authority. What emerges from this crossover is an unusual convergence in the two poets’ views of truth and justice. The analysis carries significant implications for the relation between satire and allegory in Renaissance poetics and for the political efficacy of these modes. [Y.R]

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