"And what my heart desir'd, mine eies had seene": the feminist vision of Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.

Abstract

This study examines the function of vision in Aemilia Lanyer's Save Deus Rex Judaeorum and the ways Lanyer manipulates vision, in all its possible forms, to create a poetic vision that embraces female power, intelligence, spirituality, and community. Specifically among the dedications and the country-house poem "The Description of Cooke-ham," there is a unified cohesion in which vision is consistently portrayed as liberating and empowering for women. In part, the poems serve as a defense against misogynist charges that oppress women by insisting they are inherently evil creatures based on Eve's first sin of eating the forbidden fruit. Salve Deus is a feminist re-vision that interprets Eve's sin in the context of Christ's passion. Lanyer argues that misogynist logic is flawed since Christ's crucifixion is a more horrendous crime, committed by men, than Eve's sin of eating the fruit. The re-vision of the poem seeks to exonerate Eve and all women and incorporate the power of female vision into every aspect of Lanyer's argument. Salve Deus was published in 1611, and the mere fact of its publication distinguishes Lanyer from most, if not all, female English writers during that time. Interestingly, the dedications may comprise the first published effort of a British woman's attempt to attain patronage for her endeavors, and the fact that all the dedications are to women further reinforces the notion that Lanyer was seeking to create a poetic female community. Her poetry is spiritual, political, personal, and intellectual; she challenges the members of the female community to actively see their place in Christian society, not in a misogynist society. The re-vision of Salve Deus challenges every aspect of early modern British society, yet the poem manages to successfully integrate the ideals behind feminist theory within a truly spiritual poetics.