Complaints (Containing Sundry Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie by Edmund Spenser)

This is a new edition of Spenser’s Complaints (1591), which provides unrivalled support in the reading and interpretation of these crucial poems. The introduction surveys the publication in terms of Spenser’s life, his experiments with the complaint mode, the scandal of the original publication, and the creative-critical aspects of the poems. It also considers in depth the text of the poems and the evidence of its early reception through a thorough re-evaluation of surviving manuscript copies of the poems, all of which were copied from print versions. The edition provides new support for the reading of the translation Virgils Gnat in the shape of a new translation of the text Spenser used by Syrithe Pugh, supplemented by a commentary that considers his choices as a translator. The volume also includes Daphnaïda, a poem printed at the same time as the rest of the volume and responding to analogous literary stimuli.