Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645) was the first woman poet in England who sought status as a professional writer. Her book of poems is dedicated entirely to women patrons. It offers a long poem on Christ's passion, told entirely from a woman's point of view, as well as the first country house poem published in England. Almost completely neglected until very recently, her work changes our perspective on Jacobean poetry and contradicts the common assumption that women wrote nothing of serious interest until much later. Mistress and friend of influential Elizabethan courtiers, Lanyer gives us a glimpse of the ideas and aspirations of a talented middle class Renaissance woman.
Industry Reviews
"Woods has given us a balanced, informative, and above all usable edition, one that deserves the wide audience at which it is aimed."--ANQ
"A beautiful edition of an extraordinary collection of woman-centered poems from the Renaissance. I wish I'd known of them 30 years ago in graduate school!"--Toni A.H. McNaron, University of Minnesota
"Woods's deeply knowledgeable and sensitive editing brings the powerfully revisionary poetry of Aemilia Lanyer to us in an authoritative edition. This is a feminist collaboration, across the centuries, of the highest order."--Janel Mueller, University of Chicago
"It's wonderful to have Lanyer in a decent paperback edition. Like the Chudleigh volume, it's a great contribution to Renaissance classes."--Byron Nelson, West Virginia University
"Will be most helpful for my students."--Anthony Low, New York University
"Woods has given us a balanced, informative, and above all usable edition, one that deserves the wide audience at which it is aimed."--ANQ
"A beautiful edition of an extraordinary collection of woman-centered poems from the Renaissance. I wish I'd known of them 30 years ago in graduate school!"--Toni A.H. McNaron, University of Minnesota
"Woods's deeply knowledgeable and sensitive editing brings the powerfully revisionary poetry of Aemilia Lanyer to us in an authoritative edition. This is a feminist collaboration, across the centuries, of the highest order."--Janel Mueller, University of Chicago
"It's wonderful to have Lanyer in a decent paperback edition. Like the Chudleigh volume, it's a great contribution to Renaissance classes."--Byron Nelson, West Virginia University
"Will be most helpful for my students."--Anthony Low, New York University
"I am delighted that this book is finally out....It is a fine edition, which should prove accessible to my undergraduates as well as graduate students."--Achsah Guibbory, University of Illinois, Urbana
Praise for the series: "Publishing these previously unknown or ignored volumes by women will revolutionize the canon of English and American literature taught in graduate and undergraduate courses. The list of texts is impressive. It includes some of the most important scholarship now under way in the field of Renaissance literature."--Margaret Hannay, Siena College
"Making these writers available in an easily accessible form contributes significantly not only to feminist scholarship, which has been seeking to recover the works of such writers for two decades, but also to teaching and scholarship more generally within the humanities, from the freshman level to the most specialized postgraduate level."--Marlon Ross, University of Michigan
"The texts chosen form an extremely interesting and quite varied group, and the prospect of having them in book form is exciting. Scholars and students will be much richer for it."--Carolyn Dinshaw, University of California, Berkeley
"The edition...fulfills the goals of the Brown University Women Writers Project and sets a standard for others in this series....Every sort of library with academic inclinations should invest in this series and purchase this book."--Sixteenth Century Journal
"[An] important addition to the `canon' in carefully edited, accessible, and affordable text."--Dr. K. Blumreich, Grand Valley State University
"Excellent text and presentation."--James Livingston, Northern Michigan University
"The introduction is informative and well documented. The notes and glosses throughout will be of vast benefit to my students."--Dr. Judy White, Morgan State University
"Susanne Woods's critical introduction and editing are exemplary....The Poems of Aemilia Lanyer is a welcome addition to the growing collection of works in the "Women Writers in English 1350-1850" series."--Renaissance Quarterly
"A wonderful edition...a clean, readable text, excellent critical apparatus...an informative introduction and fine maps/illustrations. Well done!"--Arnold Schmidt, California State University
