found: Work cat.: Chaucerian dream visions and complaints, 2004:(anthology of four Middle English complaints and debate poems) p. 17 (this volume participates in anthologizing love complaints, debates, and visions with a Chaucerian flavor) contents (The boke of Cupide, god of love (John Clanvowe) -- A complaynte of a lovers lyfe (John Lydgate) -- The quare of jelusy (Anonymous) -- La belle dame sans mercy (Alain Charter, translator Richard Roos))
found: Baldick, C. The Oxford dictionary of literary terms, 2008(complaint: A kind of lyric poem common from the Middle Ages to the 17th century, in which the speaker bewails either the cruelty of a faithless lover or the advent of some misfortune like poverty or exile. This kind of monologue became highly conventional in love poetry; Chaucer wrote serious complaints, as did Villon, Surrey, and Spenser)
found: The Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics, ©2012(Complaint. Usually, it is a dramatic, highly emotional lament that reveals the complainant's specific grievances against a public or private injustice; three strains of complaint are evident in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: satiric complaints; didactic complaints; and lover's complaints)
found: Beckson, K. Literary terms, 1989(Complaint: A lyric poem, common in Renaissance, which bewails the misery of the speaker, who is often someone whose beloved is unresponsive or absent. Occasionally, however, a complaint may be humorous, as in "The Complaint of Chaucer to his Empty Purse")
found: Quinn, E. A dictionary of literary and thematic terms, ©1999(Complaint: A type of poem in which the speaker laments his or her unhappy condition or bemoans the general condition of life. A popular feature of medieval or Renaissance poetry, the complaint might involve a lamentation for a lost or unrequited love, as in Sir Thomas Wyatt's "They Flee From Me" and the Earl of Surrey's "Complaint of a Lover's Rebuked," or it might represent a cry against "the wretched world" as the seat of "filth and fowle iniquite," as in Edmund Spenser's Complaints (1591). Another popular form in this period was the narrative complaint, in which historical or mythological figures recounted the twist of fortune which lead them to a tragic end ... Another example of the form is "A Lover's Complaint," notable because it was attributed to Shakespeare in his lifetime and included in the first edition of his sonnets (1609))
found: Ruse, C. The Cassell dictionary of literary and language terms, 1992(Complaint: a kind of lament, often about the state of the world as well as personal misfortune)
found: Harmon. W. A handbook to literature, ©2006(Complaint: A lyric poem in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, in which the poet (1) laments the unresponsiveness of his mistress, as in Surrey's "A Complaint by Night of the Lover Not Beloved"; (2) bemoans his unhappy lot and seeks to remedy it, as in "The Complaint of Chaucer to his Empty Purse"; (3) regrets the sorry state of the world, as in Spenser's Complaints. In a complaint, which usually takes the form of a monologue, the poet commonly explains his sad mood, describes the causes of it, discusses possible remedies, or appeals to some lady or divinity for help from his distress)
found: Cuddon, J.A. A dictionary of literary terms, 1982(Complaint: A plaintive poem; frequently the complaint of a lover to his inconstant, unresponsive or exacting mistress. For example, Surrey's Complaint by Night of the Lover not Beloved. The theme or burden of complaint became a convention, and finally a cliché, of a great deal of love poetry, but is was still being worked successfully in the middle of the 17th century by poets like Thomas Carew and Thomas Stanley. There are other types of complaint; most of them lament the state of the world, the vicissitudes of Fortune and the poet's personal griefs ... There are a number of curiosities in this genre. For instance, Sire David Lyndsay's poem The Dreme, an allegorical lament on the misgovernment of the country, and the same poet's Complaynt to the King, and his Testament and Complaynt of Our Soverane Lordis Papyngo--both of similar import and tone as The Dreme)
found: LCSH, Jan. 27, 2017(Complaint poetry. BT Poetry)
