fi cations. He emphasizes the Faery Queene’s “approch”
(l. 7), which causes Petrarch’s soul to weep. This initial
focus on the Italian author directs Raleigh’s praise
toward Spenser as a superior poet. However, this focus
then turns to the queen herself; “those graces” (l. 8),
love and “vertue,” abandon Laura’s tomb to join the
Faery Queene’s court. In other words, the graces
acknowledge that Queen Elizabeth is more worthy
than Laura, and that Spenser has idealized his heroine
more memorably than Petrarch. The third quatrain
underscores the consequences: stones bleed, ghosts
groan, and, even more strikingly, Oblivion replaces the
graces at Laura’s “herse” (l. 10). In the fi nal couplet,
Homer’s spirit also appears, trembling and cursing
Spenser, “that celestiall theife” (l. 14), for excelling ear-
lier poets and stealing their fame. These last lines con-
centrate Raleigh’s praise of Spenser as an epic poet, not
just as a love poet such as Petrarch.
Critics continue to disagree about the exact relation-
ship between Raleigh and Spenser in this sonnet. The
two poets were friends and owned adjacent properties
in Ireland, and it was Raleigh who used his infl uence at
court to introduce Spenser to the queen. Raleigh, then,
may simply be proud of his protégé. However, others
have inferred from these lines anxiety or even passive
aggression on the part of Raleigh, whose favor with the
queen was waning. Perhaps he was jealous of Spenser’s
immense achievement. Still, Spenser speaks of Raleigh
and represents him as the character Timias in The
Faerie Queene, and even at times adopts his poetic style.
Whatever the reason, Raleigh crafts a dramatic sonnet
of praise in the poetic mode of his gifted friend.
FURTHER READING
Raleigh, Walter. The Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh. Edited by
Agnes Latham. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1951.
Bednarz, James P. “The Collaborator as Thief: Raleigh’s
(Re)Vision of The Faerie Queene.” ELH 63, no. 2 (1996):
279–307.
Cousins, A. D. “Raleigh’s ‘A Vision upon the Conceipt of the
Faery Queen.’ ” Explicator 41 (1983): 14–16.
Koller, Katherine. “Spenser and Raleigh.” ELH 1, no. 1
(1934): 37–60.
Oram, William A. “Spenser’s Raleighs.” Studies in Philology
87 (1990): 341–362.
Brett Foster
METONYMY A poetic device, commonly employed
in SONNETs, wherein a detail or a noteworthy character-
istic of someone or something is used to represent the
whole. Occasionally, metonymy involves the use of
something closely related to the person or object to
represent it. For instance, “wood” is a common use of
metonymy for cross in religious lyrics such as “NOW
GOTH SONNE UNDER WOD.”
See also SYNECDOCHE.
R. Jane LaskowskiMETRICAL PREFACE TO THE PASTO-
RAL CARE (ca. 890) Near the end of the ninth
century, ALFRED THE GREAT completed a translation into
Old English of Saint Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis (Pasto-
ral Care), a treatise concerning the duties and qualities
appropriate to ecclesiastical leaders. Alfred affi xed two
prefaces to his translation: a lengthy preface in Old
English prose, describing the poor state of learning in
England at the time and Alfred’s motivations for pro-
viding the translation, and a very brief (only 17 lines
long) preface in Old English verse.
The metrical preface briefl y details the history of the
Regula Pastoralis, describing how Gregory directed
Augustine of Canterbury to bring the work to England
in order to spread the ideas of Christianity to the “island-
dwellers.” The preface goes on to say that Alfred trans-
lated the work and had copies made of his translation in
order to send it to English bishops, some of whom were
unable to read the Latin original. Throughout, the poem
employs the persona of the book itself, stating, for
example that “King Alfred translated me.” In this way,
the poem is reminiscent of ANGLO-SAXON RIDDLEs that
often speak in the voice of the object being described.
Unlike the prose preface, which precedes it, the met-
rical preface has received very little scholarly attention.
Many early studies of ANGLO-SAXON POETRY, in fact,
treated the verse preface as a poorly written poem of
little historical or literary interest. Recently, however, a
few scholars have begun to reconsider it, and current
studies have focused on the way Alfred mixes tradi-
tional poetic language and motifs with specifi c words
and phrases more typical of learned Old English prose.
By doing so, Alfred demonstrates his facility with both
styles of writing and highlights his own abilities as anMETRICAL PREFACE TO THE PASTOR AL CAR E 269