AJ suggested I think about starting to post again. She's just started her own blog, btw, where she is working through her dissertation research (will be especially interesting to lovers of Adorno, (aca-)fandom, trans-media studies, N+1, gay and lesbian culture, comics--basically anything awesome).
I've been thinking about Aemilia Lanyer lately. It's the 400th yr. anniversary (the text was likely printed in 1610, though the title page reads "1611") of the printing of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, which combines elements of Biblical commentary, the "defense of women," and "tear poetry" traditions in a meditation on Christ's passion. Some thoughts:
1.) We were reading Lanyer a few days ago in my "Biblical Allusion in the Renaissance Class," and the professor, Hannibal Hamlin, suggested a possible explanation for the title-page-date-weirdness. The King James Version was first printed in 1611, and probably was already being "hyped" while Lanyer was getting her manuscript ready for print. Maybe putting 1611 instead of 1610 on the cover was an attempt to make a connection between them.
2.) Jesus with breasts? See line 1341. Also, interesting refusal to compose a blazon of the Countess's physical body (193-200) contrasting with extended Petrarchan/Song-of-Solomonesque erotic description of Christ's body (1305-1320). And gender-bending galore!
3.) What's up with the title? Obviously a reference to the sign Pilate posted over the cross, except Lanyer adds "Deus" into the quotation--why? She says it came to her in a dream... also, is she implying that her poem belongs in this position--as the sign on top of the cross commenting on Christ's body?
4.) The work includes 11 dedicatory poems to a variety of women: royalty, patrons, friends, and women readers "in generall." Is she attempting to preserve a coterie/intended audience despite the move from manuscript to print? What exactly does printing signify about a woman's writing during this period (besides that male printers considered it marketable)?
5.) Smart work has already been done on homoeroticism in Lanyer's text. People often focus this analysis on "The Description of Cooke-ham," an additional poem in the volume, describing Lanyer's patron the Countess of Cumberland's estate (and likely the first English language country house poem). Anyway, there's this whole scene where the Countess kisses a tree (what) as she leaves the estate, and Lanyer's like "That kiss should be mine!" so she kisses the tree to steal the kiss away. And throughout the poem she's meditating on how class structures get in the way of her relationship with the Countess. Homoerotic?
I wasn't totally convinced until I noticed a passage toward the end of Salve Deus, in which Lanyer describes the Countess: "Even as the constant Lawrell, alwayes greene ... So you (deere Ladie) still remaine as Queene, / Subduing all affections that are base" (1553-1558). Obviously, there's a Daphne and Apollo reference here... making the Countess the untouchable Daphne and Lanyer the poet Apollo who desires but can never touch her. Again, their relationship is mediated through a tree/laurel/poetry. Yet the gender difference between pursuer/poet and pursued/object of poetry in the Ovidean story are recast as socioeconomic distinctions--the Countess is described by the classed terms "Ladie" and "Queene." She subdues "base" affections--the more obvious sense here would be "lewd," but given the context it isn't hard to see the "of lower social standing" definition cropping up here.
Just a few ideas. Lanyer's become so "canonical" that I'd forgotten how much remains to be said/explained/theorized about her.
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