Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex
Judaeorum
Vocabulary:
Parable, platonic, allegory, philosophy, platonic forms,
Socratic Dialogue
Introduction:
What year did Aemilia Lanyer publish her
poetry and why is that year significant? I.e, what other
famous religious work was published the same year (O ye
Baptist students)? Why was Aemilia Lanyer rapidly married
off to her cousin?
Lecture or Handouts:
Identify the following folks:
Deborah, Hester, Judith, Susanna, Eve,
Pontius Pilate, Adam
Reading Questions:
- Lanyer has two introductions to her poem, each one for
a different kind of reader. What is the first kind of
reader? What argument does she give for this reader to
trust her words? What is the second kind of reader?
Identify the Following Quotations and be Able to Discuss
Their Significance:
A. "It [the poem] was delivered unto me in sleep
many years before I had any intent to write in this manner....
And thinking it a significant token that I was appointed
to perform thsi work, I gave the very same words I received
in sleep as the fittest title I could devise for this book."
B. "Evil disposed men, who forgetting they were born
of women, nourished of women . . . do like vipers deface
the wombs wherein they were bred."
C. "It pleased our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
. . . from the time of his conceptioni, til the hour of
his
death, to be begotten of a woman, born of a woman, nourished
of a woman, obedient to a woman; and that he healed women,
pardoned women, [and] comforted women."
D. "If one weak woman simply did offend,
This sin of ours hath no excuse nor end,
To which, poor souls, we never gave consent
Witness thy wife O Pilate, speaks for all,
Who did but dream"