Lanyer, Aemilia (Vol. 30) - The Title Poem:
The Title Poem:
Lanyer's Passion poem, the Salve Deus (in eight-line pentameter stanzas, rhymed a b a b a b c c) proposes Christ as the standard that validates the various kinds of female goodness her poems treat, and condemns the multiple forms of masculine evil. The poem also undermines some fundamental assumptions of patriarchy, in that it presents Christ's Passion from the vantage point of good women, past and present. Lanyer as woman poet recounts and interprets the story. The Countess of Cumberland is the subject of the extended frame, as chief reader and meditator on the Passion, as well as exemplary image and imitator of her suffering Savior. And the Passion narrative itself emphasizes the good women who played a major role in that event, setting them in striking contrast to the weak and evil men: the cowardly apostles, the traitor Judas, the wicked Hebrew and Roman judges, the tormenting soldiers, the jeering crowds.
As poet-narrator,...
[The entire page is 3340 words long]
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