Woods, Suzanne. “Aemilia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.” A Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing. Ed. Anita Pacheco. 125-136. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. Print.

Suzanne Woods suggests “To the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty” establishes the tone and direction of Aemilia Lanyer’s volume—the virtues of women (Woods 128) “women’s virtues and men’s perfidy are mong these themes, while feasts and mirrors are common images in the dedicatory pieces” (Woods 128).

“Lanyer invites the dedicatee to enjoy the feast of the book’s long poem, the ‘Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum’ itself, and to see their own virtues reflected in the ‘glass’ or mirror of Christ’s virtues” (Woods 128)In lines 74-7, she foreshadows Eve’s Apology.In lines 89-90 she includes images of a feastDoes Lanyer replace the male gaze with the female gaze using the mirror? Is the Queen the viewer or the object?

The queen becomes the ideal reader, joining the world’s first queen, as Eve redeemed by a woman author, whose book in turn holds up the mirror of virtue to the nature of Queen Anne’s grace” (Woods 128). —SEE IF YOU CAN TIE HER TO ELIZABETH INSTEAD.

“Together, author and reader transgress patriarchal religion in the common cause of redeeming their gender” (Woodw 128) TRANGRESS PATRIARHAL DEPICTION OF WOMEN AS WEAK BY EMBODYING STRONG, SENSUAL GODDESSES.

“This initial poem also negotiates the difficulties of ‘that which is seldom seen, / A woman’s writing of divinest things’ (II 3-4)” (Woods 128).WHO BETTER TO CAST A NEGOTIATOR THAN QUEEN- TENSION WITH JAMES-NAVIGATES THROUGH COURT CULTURE.Really “to view that which is seldome seene, / A Womans writing of diuinest things” 

“The terms of the patronage system, by which the lowly receives inspiration from the higher-born, is Lanyer’s first step to authority” (Woods 128).—“Reade it faire Queene, though it defectiue be, / Your Excellence can grace both It and Mee” (5-6) —ISN’T IT REALLY AUTHORIZED BY PRINTING, PLACING NAME ON IT“Her pious topic is another. A witty rendering of the traditional association of women with the natural world accomplishes the rest” (Woods 128).

“She asks the queen’s pardon for attempting what ‘so many better can’ and insists she is not trying to

. . . compare with any man: But as they are Scholers, and by Art do write, So Nature yeelds my Soule a sad delight. (II 148-50)

“Let your faire Virtues in my Glasse be seene”Is this a performance for the male gaze or has there been an inversion? Is inversion ever the correct word?

Anne “kept her own court and sponsored a number of poets and musicians, including those such as [Samuel] Daniel, Ben Jonson, Alfonso Ferrabosco, and Nicholas Lanier” — her husband’s nephew. (Wood 127).

Construction of the poems “six-line ‘ballade’ stanza” or “seven-line ‘rhyme royal’”

Title page is traditional – woman in patriarchal terms, identified by her relationship to her husband and his relationship to the King.

“Written by Mistris Æmilia Lanyer, Wife to Captaine Alfonso Lanyer, Seruant to the Kings Majestie.” (Title page)

Epideictic verse –“complex and transgressive vision that challenges many of the conventions Lanyer employs” (Woods 127).“written by a woman, dedicated to women, and in praise of women” (Woods 127).English Poetry – what are the features?

Silent women – Forman “discontent with the decline in her fortunes” (Woods 128).“She misses her access to Elizabeth’s court and complains that her husband has dissapted the wealth she accrued during her time ad the Lord Chamberlain’s mistress” (Woods 128).“her only extant book of poems” (Woods 125).“Her book is the first clear attempt by a woman writing in English to seek professional standing as a poet. It transforms gestures from the Jacobean patronage system into the language of an ambitious woman who seeks the attention and favours of higher-born patronesses. In praising these women in terms of their piety and learning, Lanyer also transforms contemporary Christianity from its misogynist assumptions to a critique of sinful men and sensuous female gaze on Christ the Bridegroom.” (Woods 125).

“Lanyer shifts the focus of the Petrarchan language, presents a version of Christ’s passion that challenges patriarchal religion, and portrays a woman-centered Edenic society in which social class dissolves in bonds of affectionate friendship that centre the natural world and mirror a spiritual one (Lewalski 1993: 213-241)