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Complaints

£125.00
£125.00 £125.00
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A new edition of Spenser’s Complaints, with unrivalled critical apparatus and a reassessment of these fascinating poems.
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  • 13 October 2026
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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.
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Price: £125.00
Pages: 728
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Publication Date: 13 October 2026
ISBN: 9781526158857
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:

LITERARY CRITICISM / Renaissance, Literary studies: c 1400 to c 1600, LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 16th Century, Literary studies: poetry and poets, Literature: history and criticism
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Richard Danson Brown is Professor of English Literature at The Open University
Elisabeth Chaghafi is Lecturer in English at the University of Tübingen

Introduction: Piteous plaints and simple devices: Spenser’s Complaints in context
1 An overview of the contents
2 The scandal of Complaints
3 ‘This so curious net-worke’: Complaints in creative critical context
4 The text of Complaints: from 1591 to 1611 and beyond
5 The early reception of Complaints in print and manuscript
6 The text and editorial procedures

Complaints
The Printer to the Gentle Reader
The Ruines of Time
The Teares of the Muses
Virgils Gnat
Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale
Ruines of Rome: by Bellay
Muiopotmos: or The Fate of the Butterflie
Visions of the Worlds Vanitie
Visions of Bellay
Visions of Petrarch

Appendix 1: Daphnaïda
Appendix 2: Poems from van der Noot A Theatre for Worldlings (1569)
Appendix 3: By Syrithe Pugh:
- Culex: Introduction to the Culex
- Transcription of the Dumaeus edition
- The Dumaeus Culex: An annotated prose translation

Textual appendix: Q and F variants

Glossary
Bibliography and further reading
Index