Poetry Criticism | Lanyer, Aemilia - Barbara E. Bowen (essay date 2001)

Barbara E. Bowen (essay date 2001)

SOURCE: Bowen, Barbara E. “The Rape of Jesus: Aemilia Lanyer's Lucrece.” In Marxist Shakespeares, edited by Jean E. Howard and Scott Cutler Shershow, pp. 104-27. London: Routledge, 2001.

[In the following essay, Bowen analyzes Lanyer's inclusion of a quote from Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece in the title poem of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.]

The terms of the national debate have subtly, insidiously shifted. What used to be called liberal is now called radical; what used to be called radical is now called insane.

(Tony Kushner, “American Things,” in Thinking about the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness: Essays, A Play, Two Poems, and a Prayer: 1995)

My question is how to recognize moments in early modern writing when revolutionary change is imagined. Without assuming that we know in advance what form that change would take or...

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