Aemilia Lanyer
b. 27 January 1569
d. 1645
Author of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, an epic poem describing the passion
of Christ.
Born Aemilia Bassano, daughter of Baptist Bassano, a native of Venice
who was a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I and Margaret Johnson, his
common law wife. Aemilia was born into the fringes of the Elizabethan
court. Her father died when she was 7 years old, and she and her mother
were cared for by charitable women who were members of the court. They were probably
particularly taken in hand by the Lady Susan, Countess Dowager of Kent.
It was probably in this noble household that she gained the education
that informs her poems. When Aemilia was 18 years old her mother died.
Having no male reletives to care for her and very little money, she became the
mistress of Henry Cary, Lord Hunsdon, at that time Queen Elizabeth's Lord
Chamberlain. After three years she became pregnant and had to be got rid
of. She was married to Alphonso Lanyer, a court musician, who promptly
spent whatever
money she had inherited from her father and the money the Lord Chamberlain had
given her. Her husband died when she was 43. She then tried to keep a
school, but it had to close after 2 years because of disputes with the
landlord. By this time in her life the her son Henry, her only child to survive to adulthood, was old enough to work to support her, and
she lived with him and his family to the age of 76.
Lanyer's epic poem about the passion of Christ, the Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum
was published in 1611, the
same year the King James Bible appeared in print. Lanyer dedicates the book
to no less than 10 different ladies, from King James' Queen Anne to the
Lady Anne, Countess of Dorcet, her old care-taker's daughter, a woman
about 20 years her junior. Her introduction appeals to an educated
community of women who have the critical thinking skills and judgment
to appreciate her talent. She makes essentially no appology for being
a female poet publishing her own work (this was something that women were
not encouraged at that time to do).
In the volume, Lanyer makes revolutionary assertions about the
nature of women. She points out for example in her introdution "to the
Vertuous Reader" the prominence women have in the Gospel, saying that
Christ was "begotten of a woman, borne of a woman, nourished of a woman,
obedient to a woman; and that he healed woman, pardoned women, comforted
women: yea, even when he was in his greatest agonie and bloodie sweat,
going to be crucified, and also in the last houre of his death, tooke
care to dispose of a woman: after his resurrection, appeared first to a
woman, sent a woman to declare his most glorious resurrection to the
rest of his Disciples" She makes an appology or defense for Eve from the
garden of Eden story, and portrays the women throughout the story and strong
characters and good women. In an interesting contrast, her portrayal of
Christ strikes the modern reader (and possibly the contemporary reader)
as rather feminine. She shows him as
obedient, submissive, patient and merciful, and describes him as physically
very beautiful, using language from the Song of Songs both to extoll his
beauty, and to link him to the church (Christ was said to be married to the
christian church).
Nine original copies of the text exist today, five of which are complete (having
all the dedications and introductions).
Aemilia Lanyer was one of the first women to write and publish poems in
English.