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Coscus, Queen Elizabeth, and Law in John Donne’s“Satyre II”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Gregory Kneidel
Gregory Kneidel*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut, Greater Hartford
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Abstract

This essay argues that John Donne’s “Satyre II” (ca. 1595) has a greater topical relevance to the emergence of the Anglo-American common-law tradition than literary and legal scholars have previously recognized. It makes the case that the villain of Donne’s poem, the poet-turned-lawyer Coscus, may be Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634) and that two female figures in the poem may be Queen Elizabeth (r. 1558–1603). Donne attacks Coke and Elizabeth for their complicity in deploying an antiquated and backward-looking feudal ideal in order to lend prestige to the common law, to enrich the crown and its officers, and to frustrate the dynastic prospects of landholding gentry.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , Spring 2008 , pp. 92 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2008

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Jeff Johnson, Ray Anselment, Dennis Flynn, Lorna Hutson, this journal’s editor and anonymous reader, and the audience at the 2007 John Donne Society Conference for improving comments, suggestions, and criticisms.

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