Woods, Suzanne. Aemilia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.

A Companion to Early
Modern Womens Writing. Ed. Anita Pacheco. 125-136. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
Print.
Suzanne Woods suggests To the Queens Most Excellent Majesty establishes the tone
and direction of Aemilia Lanyers volumethe virtues of women (Woods 128)
womens virtues and mens 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 books long poem, the Salve Deus
Rex Judaeorum itself, and to see their own virtues reflected in the glass or mirror of
Christs virtues (Woods 128)
In lines 74-7, she foreshadows Eves Apology.
In lines 89-90 she includes images of a feast
Does 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 worlds first queen, as Eve redeemed by
a woman author, whose book in turn holds up the mirror of virtue to the nature of Queen
Annes 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
womans 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 Lanyers first step to authority (Woods 128).
Reade it faire Queene, though it defectiue be, / Your Excellence can grace both It and
Mee (5-6) ISNT 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 queens 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 husbands 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 milia 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 Elizabeths court and complains that her husband has dissapted
the wealth she accrued during her time ad the Lord Chamberlains 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 Christs 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)