ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the complex, multi-layered, continually receding narrative structure of A Lover's Complaint in relation to what the author terms the exculpatory complaint—a subgenre that interrogates the social and ethical codes that didactic de casibus complaints such as Churchyard's 'Shore's Wife' promulgate. Churchyard and other authors of de casibus complaints present the female complainant as a sinful, fallen woman who has been justly punished for her sexual license and moral failing. At moments, Shakespeare's poet/narrator seems to fall into this traditional position. Both Lee's and Shakespeare's poets/narrators speak in the first person, and both remain distant silent observers, concealing their presence in order to overhear and observe the female complainant without impinging on her solitary complaint. When read alongside Sir Henry Lee's and Anne Vavasour's lyric dialogue, A Lover's Complaint illustrates the radical ways in which the complaint genre could be redefined to defend female desire and to challenge social and ethical codes.
