Aemilia Lanyer and the New Astronomy

This book presents original material which indicates that Aemilia Lanyer – female writer, feminist, and Shakespeare contemporary – is Shakespeare’s hidden and arguably most significant co-author. Once dismissed as the mere paramour of Shakespeare’s patron, Lord Hunsdon, she is demonstrated to be a most articulate forerunner of #MeToo fury. Building on previous research into the authorship of Shakespeare’s works, Bradbeer offers evidence in the form of three case studies which signal Aemilia’s collaboration with Shakespeare. The first case study matches the works of "George Wilkins" – who is currently credited as the co-author of the feminist Shakespeare play Pericles (1608) – with Aemilia Lanyer’s writing style, education, feminism and knowledge of Lord Hunsdon’s secret sexual life. The second case-study recognizes Titus Andronicus (1594), a play containing the characters Aemilius and Bassianus, to be a revision of the suppressed play Titus and Vespasian (1592), as authored by the unmarried pregnant Aemilia Bassano, as she then was. Lastly, it is argued that Shakespeare’s clowns, Bottom, Launce, Malvolio, Dromio, Dogberry, Jaques, and Moth, arise in her deeply personal war with the misogynist Thomas Nashe. Each case study reveals new aspects of Lanyer’s feminist activism and involvement in Shakespeare’s work, and allows for a deeper analysis and appreciation of the plays. This research will prove provocative to students and scholars of Shakespeare studies, English literature, literary history, and gender studies.

` Micheline White - A Woman with Saint Peter's Keys?: Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611) and the Priestly Gifts of Women - Criticism 45:3 Criticism 45.3 (2003) 323-341 [Access article in PDF] A Woman with Saint Peter's Keys?: Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611) and the Priestly Gifts of Women Micheline White PART OF THE COMPLEX ecclesiastical and social restructuring that took place in England following the Reformation involved the articulation of new religious roles for women. As the Protestant church dissolved female Catholic communities and adopted Luther's doctrine of the "spiritual priesthood" of all believers, it exhorted women to embrace new religious activities and ideals. A wide range of genres contributed to the emergence of normative values associated with the ideal Protestant woman, genres including funeral sermons, exemplary biographies, conduct manuals, fictional texts, and panegyric poetry. A survey of works written between 1560 and 1625 reveals that educated, wealthy women were typically praised for dispensing charity, reading the Bible and devotional works at home, attending public religious exercises, providing religious instruction to their households, displaying exemplary piety in their communities, and remaining humble and obedient to their husbands. In the past decade, Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611) has been recognized as an important Jacobean text because it challenges these normative ideals and reimagines women's relationship to the sacred in provocative ways. This essay will examine two interrelated features of the volume that warrant more thorough investigation. First, while Lanyer draws on a wide range of orthodox religious imagery in praising her female dedicatees, she also appropriates clerical language and suggests that they wield certain priestly powers. Notably, she asserts that the Countess of Cumberland exercises the healing power of St. Peter's keys, that the Countess of Cumberland and her daughter are "shepherdesses" who heal and feed Christ's "flock," and that virtuous women are authorized to anoint themselves with "Aaron's oil" and feed each other with the Word. A careful examination of Lanyer's Passion poem [End Page 323] reveals that these unusual claims about her contemporaries are thoroughly consistent with her understanding of the role that women played in the drama of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. Specifically, she depicts women as the true disciples and founders of Christ's healing Church, and she positions Jacobean women as the spiritual heirs of these female disciples.1 These unorthodox claims warrant careful consideration, not only because they enrich our understanding of the radical nature of Lanyer's work, but also because they contribute to a newly uncovered tradition of dissent regarding women's supposed inability to access the gifts associated with the Christian priesthood. Recent feminist scholarship has argued that women played important leadership roles in the Jesus movement and early Christianity, and that it was not until the third or fourth centuries that male leaders began attacking female leaders and developing arguments to disqualify them from religious offices.2 A thousand years later, when Reformation leaders drastically revised their understanding of the essence and function of the clergy, they did not significantly revise their views regarding women and the priesthood. Rather, they reaffirmed the now "orthodox" arguments that women could not fill such offices because Christ had chosen men, not women, to be his disciples; because Paul had forbidden women to teach in public religious assemblies; because only men could persuasively serve as "images" of Christ; and because the church had always forbidden women from being priests.3 However, as feminist historians are now demonstrating, there were individuals and communities that challenged women's exclusion from the powers associated with the priesthood throughout the medieval and early modern periods, doing so from a variety of theological, social, and political perspectives.4 Lanyer's representation of women's hieratic gifts contributes to this tradition of dissent, and her work is all the more remarkable since there was no significant discussion about women and the priesthood in mainstream Elizabethan or Jacobean discourse. It should be stated from the outset that Lanyer does not explicitly argue for institutional changes that would allow women to serve as priests within the existing ecclesiastical hierarchy. Rather, woven throughout her...

Research Article| September 01 2006 Utopia of Desire: The Real and Ideal in Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum Constance M. Furey Constance M. Furey Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2006) 36 (3): 561–584. https://doi.org/10.1215/10829636-2006-005 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Constance M. Furey; Utopia of Desire: The Real and Ideal in Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 1 September 2006; 36 (3): 561–584. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10829636-2006-005 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsJournal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Duke University Press2006 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

MLR, 105.4, 2010 1141 stamp of scholarly heft. Cohering the work around close analyses of individual words employed by Milton, the author's stated aim, consonant with the recent academic trend (as exemplified in Gordon Campbell and Thomas Corns's John Milton: Life,Work, and Thought from the same publisher (2008), reviewed above), is threefold: to rehabilitate her subject's neglected prose works; to encourage, confident in its canonical status, a less deferential attitude towards theMilton corpus in general; and relatedly, to emphasize its contingency, the 'series of changes of direction, impulsive gestures, apologies, revisions, and thoughts worked out in the very process ofwriting them down' (p. 14). An engaging chapter on the divorce pamphlets argues plausibly thatMilton presents a logical case for reform of the divorce law, superimposed on a subtext of emotional chaos' (p. 48), the latter evidenced by the copious deployment of metaphor and euphemism in the Doctrine and Discipline ofDivorce (1643) which underscores his apparent physical and intellectual difficulties with sexual intercourse at this time. The most diverting?and important?chapter, however, concerns the still under-studied Paradise Regained (1671). In it,Patterson argues for, among other things, the significant influence on Milton's epic of JohnBale's Temptacyon of Christ (1538), evidenced in both writers' vividly transforming the biblical account of Christ's trial in the wilderness into dramatic literature. Inwhat for Patterson is tantamount to an audacious mission to rework, and even rewrite, Scripture itself, Milton exhibits recognizably Socinian sympathies through rendering God's redemption ofmankind a corollary of Christ's passing, through constant reference toOld Testament writings, a word-based test of intellectuality. Birkbeck, University of London Philip Major Refiguring the Sacred Feminine: The Poems of JohnDonne, Aemilia Lanyer, and John Milton. By Theresa M. DiPasquale. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. 2008. xiii+392 pp. ?49.99. ISBN 978-0-8207-0405-0. This tripartite study of the importance of the 'sacred feminine' for the poetics of JohnDonne, Aemilia Lanyer, and John Milton is asworthy an act of scholarship as Theresa DiPasquale's previous book from the same publisher, her award-winning Literature and Sacrament: The Sacred and the Secular inJohnDonne (1999)- As in her previous research, DiPasquale's historical and philological understanding and her considerable sensitivity to the implications of patristic,medieval, Reformation, and post-Reformation theology enrich her formalist readings of early modern poetry. The focus of her enquiry concerns these seventeenth-century poets' portrayal of 'the feminine as a reflection of the divine, and woman herself, at her best, as an agent of redemption or conduit of grace' (p. 2), and the journey on which she takes her reader surveys individual poetic treatments of, variously, the biblical figure of divine, created, and practical Wisdom, the bride of the Song of Songs, the Pauline and apocalyptic Ecclesia, and theVirgin Mary. DiPasquale selects these three particular poets over the likes ofVaughan or Herbert because, 1142 Reviews she maintains, they are all [. . .] exceptionally provocative in their approaches to sex and gender as aspects of the sacred' (p. 2). As a leading Donne scholar, DiPasquale is in her element in the study's first chapter. She provides a fresh Trinitarian interpretation of Donne's little-read 'The Annuntiation and Passion', inwhich she uncovers a feminine triad of 'the cogitating Christian soul, the woman upon whom her mind's eye gazes (the Blessed Virgin), and her guide (the church)' (p. 24), and finds in the occasion celebrated, the coincidence of Lady Day and Good Friday, as much a celebration of 'the flesh of a woman (worn by her son) that redeems humanity' (p. 33) as a memorialization of the redeemer himself. Her analysis of one ofDonne's most intricate sonnets, the sonnet upon the death of his wife entitled 'Since She whome I lovd', is also worthwhile for its tactful handling of Donne's conflicted sense of Anne Donne as a human sacrament, his remembrance of her present absence as a celestial bride drawing his spirit heavenward even as his desire forher absent presence attracts his flesh to earth. The chapter concludes with an extended analysis of Donne's Anniversaries that resumes DiPasquale's enduring interest in sacramental poetics. In the First and Second Anniversaries...

^A s the first significant book of original poetry published by an Englishwoman, Aemilia Lanyer's 1611 volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaorum, bears a considerable burden. The volume self-consciously assumes the task of delivering to posterity a new literary tradition, a newly public, because published, tradition of poetry by women. Intimately tied to this unprecedented achievement is the stunning claim for her poetic vocation that Lanyer makes in that volume's title poem, a narration of the Passion, the events surrounding the crucifixion of Christ. Literary history has traditionally assumed Lanyer's younger contemporary, John Milton, to be the first English poet to ascribe his vocation to his fate at birth.' But we must ask Milton to relinquish that honor to Lanyer, who offered a bold incarnational narrative near the end of her long poem on Christ's Passion. Addressing the countess of Cumberland as either a real or presumed patron, she writes:

Preface Acknowledgements 1. Studying Early Modern Women Writers 2. Women in Early Modern England Chiselling the Image, Unwinding the Rhetoric Reading Early Modern Women's Writing Educating Women Praising and Blaming Women Wiving and Thriving Childbearing 3. The Genres of Early Modern Women's Writing Translation Margaret Beaufort, Margaret Roper, Elizabeth Tudor, Mary Bassett Jane Lumley, the Cooke Sisters, Anne Vaughan Lock, Margaret Tyler, Mary Sidney Herbert Theological Debate, Romantic Intrigue, and Classical Tragedy: Elizabeth Cary, Judith Man, Katherine Philips Meditations and Testimonials Prayers Letters and Diaries Poetry Elizabethan poets: Isabella Whitney, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, Anne Vaughan lock, Lady Mary Sidney Herbert, Anne Dowriche, Elizabeth Melville Esther Inglis and Elizabeth Jane Weston in the Republic of Letters Jacobean polemical Talents: Aemilia Lanyer, Bathsua Reginald, Rachel Speght, Mary Wroth Caroline, protectorate, and Restoration Poets' Complication of Early Modern Selfhood: Diana Primrose, Mary Fage, An Collins, 'Eliza', Elizabeth Major, Gertrude Thimelby, Anne Bradstreet, Mary Cavendish, Katherine Philips Drama and the Dramatic 'Closet' Drama: translations, Adaptations, Original Creations Mothers' Advice Books: Elizabeth Grymeston, Dorothy Leigh, Elizabeth Clinton, Elizabeth Joscelin, Elizabeth Richardson Prophecies and Polemics, Petitions and Missionary Accounts: Radical Women and Godly Zeal 4. Six Major Authors Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621) Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645) Elizabeth Tanfiled Cary, Viscountess of Falkland (1585-1639) Lady Mary Wroth (1587-1653) Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda (1632-1664)

Aemilia Lanyer’s poem, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum , uses striking pre-Reformation iconography to present Christ as a book, a strategy that has not received prior critical attention. This article argues that this metaphor, together with the metaphoric presentation of her book as a sacred feast, lies at the center of the mode of affective devotional reading. It also aligns her own text with scripture and authorizes her poetics. In providing instructions for reading Christ the Book that are rich in the language of affective meditation, Lanyer draws on a tradition of pre-Reformation contemplative reading, which, the article argues, can be identified in early modern female devotional traditions. The article discusses the history of the use of the iconography of Christ as a book, from the twelfth century to Lancelot Andrewes, and explores it in relation to Bernadine and Lutheran spirituality. It argues that Lanyer engages a diverse nexus of confessional modalities in her treatment of this iconography and of religious sorrow, matching her own mixed religious heritage and the confessionally diverse group of her dedicatees. She uses a poetics of incarnation to overcome difference and to promote the synergistic force of reading the Passion.

This essay is concerned with the work of four English poets from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries — Mary Sidney (the Countess of Pembroke), John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer and George Herbert — who, despite their differences of class, gender and chosen literary form, shared a common inspiration, the profound sense that they were among those ‘whom the Lord with love affecteth’.1 The impact and expression of religious experience took a variety of poetic shapes in the work of the four writers. Mary Sidney produced a verse translation of the psalms, revising the text of the first 43 psalms drafted by her brother before his death, and single-handedly translating the remaining 107 psalms into increasingly sophisticated lyric verse forms. John Donne wrote occasional religious verse and dramatic meditative sonnets, while Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum is an extended verse narrative of the Passion, and George Herbert’s The Temple includes a sequence of over 150 devotional lyrics. Their work reached the reading public by a variety of routes over four centuries. Sidney’s psalms, completed around 1599, and Donne’s religious verse, written in the first three decades of the seventeenth century, are known to have circulated in manuscript, reflecting the courtly tradition of coterie writing which eschewed the public mode of print.2 Lanyer, a middle-class woman on the margins of court society, took the bold step of publishing her own small book in 1611.3 Herbert’s The Temple came out in printed form immediately after his death in 1633, the same year as the belated posthumous publication of Donne’s poems. The complete text of the Sidney Psalm translation was not published until 1823.4KeywordsWoman WriterLate SixteenthFemale BeautyEnglish PoetAmorous SoulThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Not much is known about the middle class womenfrom the Elizabethan and Jacobean era who served the aristocracy and lived on its edge. Aemilia Lanyer and Shakespeare’s Helena, a real woman and a dramatic character, are two such women. By considering one of Shakespeare’s female characters alongside a real woman from the period who shared a similar social predicament, much may be learnt about the cultural position of women at the time, the limits upon women’s agency, and the efforts by some women to pursue their aspirations and desires within these limits. By taking this New Historicist approach we may also learn something about Shakespeare in the context of his time. This article will look at Lanyer, who served as a companion to the Countess of Cumberland, and Helena from All’s Well That Ends Well, who was a companion to the Countess Rossillion. It will examine their lives and choices and compare their situation with the aristocratic women they served. The article will look for parallels in the circumstances of all these women.

Aemilia Lanyer uses the genealogical model of promise, fulfillment, and supersedure implied by biblical typology and the vindication of the godly implied in scriptural apocalypse to accomplish several related aims: to represent her dedicatees as biblical types; to fashion Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, as the apotheosized Christian woman; to write women's literary history. Her fluid metaphors and biblical allusions, which require reading equally for their material and spiritual significance, acknowledge Margaret and her daughter's desire for the spiritual inheritance of the Kingdom and the worldly aristocratic inheritance willed away from their female line in favor of a male heir.

Theresa DiPasquales study of John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, and John Milton demonstrates how each of these seventeenth century English poets revised, reformed, and renewed the Judeo-Christian tradition of the sacred feminine. All three poets are deeply invested in the ancient, scripturally authorized belief that the relationship between God and humankind is gendered: God is father, bridegroom, king; the human soul and the Church as corporate entity are daughter, bride, and consort. All three poets, DiPasquale demonstrates, thus engage in literary projects that modify, expand upon, challenge, or rethink the natures of men and women, the duties and privileges of the female sex, and the essential role played by feminine powers and influences in healing the sin-forged rift between God and humanity.

This article locates the Passion piety of the Jacobean poet, Aemilia Lanyer, within the context of early-seventeenth-century English Protestant devotion, to present a fresh perspective on her 1611 composition, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. A close exploration of the remarkable resurgence of visual and affecting reflection on the crucifixion of Christ within the broader contemporary religious landscape reveals that Lanyer's theology is far less radical than has been frequently asserted. Whilst maintaining that Salve Deus is a uniquely woman-centred text, this article advances an argument for a more nuanced impact of gender on its precise formulations.

“Witnesse Thy Wife (O <i>Pilate</i>) Speakes for All”: Aemilia Lanyer's Strategic Self-Positioning

Feminist Queer Temporalities in Aemilia Lanyer and Lucy Hutchinson

Doubtful Readers: Print, Poetry, and the Reading Public in Early Modern England focuses on early modern publishers’ efforts to identify and accommodate new readers of verse that had previously been restricted to particular social networks in manuscript. Focusing on the period between the maturing of the market for printed English literature in the 1590s and the emergence of the professional poet following the Restoration, this study shows that poetry was shaped by—and itself shaped—strong print publication traditions. By reading printed editions of poems by William Shakespeare, Aemilia Lanyer, John Donne, and others, this book shows how publishers negotiated genre, gender, social access, reputation, literary knowledge, and the value of English literature itself. It uses literary, historical, bibliographical, and quantitative evidence to show how publishers’ strategies changed over time. Ultimately, Doubtful Readers argues that although—or perhaps because—publishers’ interpretive and editorial efforts are often elided in studies of early modern poetry, their interventions have had an enduring impact on our canons, texts, and literary histories.