Pierce Penilesse, his supplication to the Divell (1592) Book

This is another piece that I studied for a module at university that I am going back over again in order to bring it into an exam. As with many texts that I am revising, I don't think that I can say that I necessarily enjoyed reading this- for such a short book, I find the reading experience of this torturously slow. Nashe is a figure whose work I think is designed to be studied, rather than enjoyed (in a similar way to how you read Ulysses with the purpose of deciphering its message), and, therefore, does make for a rich examination into what I am interested in talking about: the grotesque. Nashe's writing feels like an Elizabeth version of Private Eye- it is satirical, vituperative, and humorously accurate in the way that he captures everyday vice; at a time of food scarcity and an economic downturn, Nashe turns his focus to excess and lack and, thus, creates a prose piece that is disturbingly focused on bodily grotesque. As someone who is an Angela Carter fan and enjoys bringing in elements of this into my own writing, I found this at times too much- Nashe's London is a perverse parallel and he has a particular flare for distorting, and rending repellent, even the consumption of food. At times, this feels quite misanthropic and, much like Swift's voice in Gulliver's Travels, is designed to unsettle- needless to say, this wasn't the pleasantest read! The narrative itself is psychedelic and scatological and very much failed to meet my expectations/aspirations that this would be some play on Marlowe's Dr Faustus.