SOURCE: “Some Problems of Unity in Sir Walter Ralegh's The Ocean's Love to Cynthia,” in Studies in English Literature: 1500-1900, Vol. XIV, No. 1, Winter 1974, pp. 17-30.

In the following essay, Johnson analyzes the consistency and success of the poem's metaphorical and thematic structure.

Peter Une, in his article “The Poetry of Sir Walter Ralegh,” makes a distinction between Ralegh and Spenser by considering the first as a poet writing dominantly from within the context of courtly life and the second as one writing from without.¹ Thus, although the Queen is frequently the compositional center in the poetry of both, Ralegh writes as an insider on intimate terms with her daily world, while Spenser writes with the more general view of the outsider. Ralegh sees her as the center of courtly relations; Spenser conceives her as the pivot of national life. Ralegh's court is political quicksand; Spenser's is Platonic...