In this paper, we develop an analytical approach to Doppler cooling of atoms by one-or twophoton transitions when the natural width of the excited level is so small that the process leads to a Doppler temperature comparable to the recoil temperature. A "quenching" of the sharp line is introduced in order to allow control of the time scale of the problem. In such limit, the usual FokkerPlanck equation does not correctly describe the cooling process. We propose a generalization of the Fokker-Planck equation and derive a new model which is able to reproduce correctly the numerical results, up to the recoil limit. Two cases of practical interest, one-photon Doppler cooling of strontium and two-photon Doppler cooling of hydrogen are considered.