We know that all texts are indeterminate, incomplete … but some areextra -indeterminate, written by design to beextra -incomplete, to require, more than other texts, that the reader transfer meaning from other texts and from other semiotic fields altogether in order to correctly interpret the meaning. This book focuses on one such type of text, what I call “indirect satire,” by which I mean satirical writing that the reader cannot understandas satire without this intersemiotic transfer of meaning into the textual interpretation. Sometimes, in the densely allusive literary culture of the early modern period, intertextual transfer suffices to “get”...

In Edmund Spenser’sProsopopoia; or, Mother Hubberds Tale , a tonal shift characterizes the final episode, in which the villainous Fox and Ape, having wreaked havoc in the three estates as husbandmen, clerics, and courtiers, go even farther by usurping royal power. The self-conscious Chaucerianism of the first episodes—summarized by Kent van den Berg as “the recreative fiction that animals are like men”—gives way to a more fully developed, and more clearly satirical, fictional world in which “men are like animals” (“Counterfeit,” 92). Fable shifts to allegory when the generic landscape of the first three episodes—a vaguely England-like...

The previous chapter provided a preliminary analysis of how indirect satire works to create a sense of an allegorical connection to the real world and real situations and discussed how allusions, symbolism, and analogy prompted allegorical projections that inflected contemporaries’ understanding of the message ofMother Hubberds Tale , Spenser’s best-known satirical work. In this chapter, I will continue analyzing Spenserian indirection in satire, but with an additional concept in play by examining the way that Spenser presents affiliative ties with other poets as part of his own self-fashioning as a satirical poet. Just as, in the 1590s and the early...

The previous two chapters have analyzed Spenser’s methods of creating satirical meaning in his early poetry. It would now be sensible, and might even be expected, to devote a chapter to the satirical episodes inThe Faerie Queene , especially the second installation of 1596, which includes a great deal more allegorical commentary on contemporary historical events than the first three books do. Instead, I veer in another direction entirely and in the remainder of the book will consider how other poets used Spenser as source material and used ideas about Spenserianism, shared with their audience, to help them signal their...

In his own satirical poetry, Edmund Spenser criticized indirectly, requiring readers to interpret clues carefully to access satirical meanings. For some readers, such as Joseph Hall and William Bedell, Spenser’s reputation as a decorous, conservative poet seemed to obscure awareness of him as also demonstrating an interest in or affinity for satirical writing, as discussed in Chapter 3. This chapter offers a corrective in the form of “case studies” of three poets who were quite sensitively attuned to the potential for satirical readings or uses of Spenserian intertexts. Analyzing Thomas Nashe’sChoise of Valentines with reference to Spenser’s “March” eclogue...

Among the books burned by order of the Bishops’ Ban on June 4, 1599, was nineteen-year-old Thomas Middleton’sMicro-Cynicon: Sixe Snarling Satyres , a collection of verse satires. T.M. the young satirist would of course soon become Thomas Middleton the seasoned dramatist, and criticism of Middleton’s work has not surprisingly focused primarily on his more mature work for the theater. Nevertheless, early satires such asMicro-Cynicon andFather Hubburds Tales; or, The Ant and the Nightingale (1604) repay scrutiny, not only for what they can tell us about Middleton’s youthful political views but also for what we can learn about the...

Spenser’s death in 1599, the promulgation of the Bishops’ Ban in 1599, and the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603—each of these could be expected to affect the writing of poetry in England, with Spenser’s influence becoming modified by nostalgia, authors trying to interpret the text of the Bishops’ Ban to determine how to respond to its directive “That noe Satyres or Epigramms be printed hereafter” (qtd. in McCabe, “Elizabethan satire,” 188), and everyone watching to see what degree of oversight of the press would characterize King James’s reign. The previous chapter speculated on the impact of these three...

In Chapter 1, I offered a contemporary theory of how indirect satire works, focusing on the social process of meaning-making required by this type of satirical work with reference to other recent theoretical works that emphasize the social functions of satire. To conclude, I would like to reverse my chronology to consider the theories and values underlying indirect forms of satire in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In developing this argument, we cannot take satirical poets at their word regarding their intentions or methods because of the repeated assertions during this time period—many of which I have...