Moran is a secondary school teacher of English and American literature. In this essay, he examines the ways in which Raleigh's poem satirizes the sentiments found in Marlowe's poem.

In his collection of interviews, Strong Opinions , Vladimir Nabokov remarks, "Satire is a lesson; parody is a game." In other words, the aim of satire is to point out some fault in human nature that the artist feels needs to be remedied, while the aim (or "game") of parody is to imitate the form and style of the original work as closely as possible. Well-crafted parodies are often amusing, but when an artist combines the playful game of parody with the weighty lessons of satire, the result can be a work more intense and thought-provoking than one that only mimics or instructs. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is one of the most forceful examples of what happens when...