Poetry Criticism | Lanyer, Aemilia - Michael Morgan Holmes (essay date 2001)

Michael Morgan Holmes (essay date 2001)

SOURCE: Holmes, Michael Morgan. “Rich Chains of Love: Desire and Community in Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judæorum.” In Early Modern Metaphysical Literature: Nature, Custom and Strange Desires, pp. 89-105. Basingstoke, Hampshire, England: Palgrave, 2001.

[In the following essay, Holmes contends that in Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum “the commingling of religious piety, a defence of women, and a celebration of their mutual passion and devotion engagingly denaturalizes customary power relations and gender identities.”]

Aemilia Lanyer devoted herself to God and other women. Her visions of past and future utopian worlds consistently place love of the deity in and through a community of women at the centre of personal happiness and social justice. In her only known work, Salve Deus Rex Judæorum, the commingling of religious piety, a defence of women, and a celebration of...

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