The Profanely Erotic Bridegroom Passages in Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum

Arguing against many critics who posit that Aemilia Lanyer was a devout, pious Protestant, I focus on the biblical Song of Songs derived Bridegroom passages of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum and the yet unexplored intrusion of the narrator who confesses her profanity at the eroticization of the risen Christ, satirizing and parodying the practice of affective piety and the sacrament of confession. Lanyer’s clever, titillating, sexualized poetry becomes a cynical performance in light of the extravagant conventions of affective piety, a piety still current in the literary and religious cultures of her day. Through the lens of affective piety, it may be possible to assess more fully early modern women’s daring attempts at writing, a writing which, for Lanyer, parodies, satirizes, and critiques a society bound by religious and social mores, a decorum stifling in its intensity, potentially dangerous to its dissenters.

References

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