Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:22:29.259Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Literal and Spiritual Births: Mary as Mother in Seventeenth-Century Women’s Writing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Victoria Brownlee
Victoria Brownlee*
Affiliation:
National University of Ireland, Galway
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Mindful of the complex position of Christ’s mother, Mary, in post-Reformation Europe, this article examines how two women writers read Mary’s fleshly relationship with Christ. Reading the Bible typologically, Aemilia Lanyer and Dorothy Leigh determine that Mary’s material labor has spiritual consequences, because, in delivering Christ, she delivers God’s plan for salvation and inaugurates the new covenant. But, interpreting Marian maternity in this way, Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum and Leigh’s The Mothers Blessing also suggest that the new covenant initiates a form of maternity that has sustained spiritual resonance for all women and has profound implications for the female writer.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , Winter 2015 , pp. 1297 - 1326
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Thomas. The happiness of the church. London, 1619.Google Scholar
Aemilia Lanyer: Gender, Genre and the Canon. Ed. Grossman, Marshall. Lexington, 1998.Google Scholar
A.G. The widdoves mite cast into the treasure-house of the prerogatiues, and prayses of our B. Lady. Saint-Omer, 1619.Google Scholar
Ainsworth, Henry. The Orthodox Foundation of Religion. London, 1641.Google Scholar
Allen, Prudence. The Concept of Women: The Aristotelian Revolution, 750 BC–AD 1250. Grand Rapids, 1985.Google Scholar
Almond, Philip. Adam and Eve in Seventeenth-Century Thought. Cambridge, 1999.10.1017/CBO9780511585104CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York, 1981.Google Scholar
Astell, Ann W. The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, 1990.Google Scholar
Barroll, Leeds. “Looking for Patrons.” In Aemilia Lanyer (1998), 29–48.Google Scholar
Beattie, Tina. God’s Mother, Eve’s Advocate: A Marian Narrative of Women’s Salvation. London, 2002.Google Scholar
Beilin, Elaine. Redeeming Eve: Women Writers of the English Renaissance. Princeton, 1987.Google Scholar
Bentley, Jerry H. Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance. Princeton, 1983.10.1515/9780691187310CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentley, Thomas. The fift lampe of virginitie conteining sundrie forms of christian praiers and meditations. London, 1582a.Google Scholar
Bentley, Thomas. The monument of matrones conteining seuen seuerall lamps of virginitie. London: 1582b.Google Scholar
Böhme, Jakob. The fifth book of the authour, in three parts the first, Of the becoming man or incarnation of Jesus Christ. London, 1659.Google Scholar
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion: Volume Two. Ed. McNeill, John T.. Trans. Ford Lewis Battles. Louisville, 2006.Google Scholar
Crashaw, William. The Jesuites Gospel. London, 1610.Google Scholar
Crawford, Patricia. Women and Religion in England 1500–1720. London, 1993.Google Scholar
DiPasquale, Theresa M. “Woman’s Desire for Man in Lanyer’s Salve Dues Rex Judaeorum .” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 99.3 (2000): 356–78.Google Scholar
DiPasquale, Theresa M. Refiguring the Sacred Feminine: The Poems of John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, and John Milton. Pittsburgh, 2008.Google Scholar
Dolan, Francis. Whores of Babylon: Catholicism, Gender, and Seventeenth-Century Print Culture. Notre Dame, 2005.Google Scholar
Dunn, James. Jesus, Paul and the Law. London, 1994.Google Scholar
Ellington, Donna S. From Sacred Body to Angelic Soul: Understanding Mary in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Washington, 2001.Google Scholar
Fissell, Mary E. Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England. Oxford, 2004.Google Scholar
Frampton, Travis L. Spinoza and the Rise of Historical Criticism of the Bible. New York, 2006.Google Scholar
Freinkel, Lisa. Reading Shakespeare’s Will: The Theology of Figure from Augustine to the Sonnets. New York, 2002.Google Scholar
Galdon, Joseph A. Typology and Seventeenth-Century Literature. The Hague, 1975.10.1515/9783110873214CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Geneva Bible: A Facsimile of the 1560 Edition. Peabody, 2007.Google Scholar
Gifford, George. Sermons vpon the whole booke of the Revelation. London, 1599.Google Scholar
Gray, Catharine. “Feeding on the Seed of the Woman: Dorothy Leigh and the Figure of Maternal Dissent.” English Literary History 68 (2001): 563–92.10.1353/elh.2001.0023CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamburgh, Harvey E. “The Problem of Lo Spasimo of the Virgin in Cinquecento Paintings of the Descent from the Cross.” Sixteenth Century Journal 12.4 (1981): 45–75.10.2307/2539878CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, John. A Facil traictise . . . Dedicate to his soverain Prince, the Kings Majestie of Scotland, King James the Saxt. In Catholic Tractates of the Sixteenth Century, 1573–1600. ed. Thomas Graves Law, 217–46. Edinburgh, 1901.Google Scholar
Heal, Bridget. The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany: Protestant and Catholic. Cambridge, 2007.Google Scholar
Heller, Jennifer Louise. The Mother’s Legacy in Early Modern England. Farnham, 2011.Google Scholar
Hill, Christopher. Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England. Basingstoke, 1997.10.1007/978-1-349-61668-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, I.B. Virginalia. or Spirituall sonnets in prayse of the most glorious Virgin Marie. Rouen, 1632.Google Scholar
Keenan, Hugh T. Typology and English Medieval Literature. New York, 1992.Google Scholar
Killeen, Kevin. “Chastising with Scorpions: Reading the Old Testament in Early Modern England.” Huntington Library Quarterly 73 (2010): 491–506.10.1525/hlq.2010.73.3.491CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killeen, Kevin. “Veiled Speech: Preaching, Politics and Scriptural Typology.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon. ed. McCullough, Peter, Hugh Adlington and Emma Rhatigan, 387–403. Oxford, 2011.Google Scholar
Kreitzer, Beth. Reforming Mary: Changing Images of the Virgin Mary in Lutheran Sermons of the Sixteenth Century. Oxford, 2004.10.1093/019516654X.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. “Stabat Mater.” In The Female Body in Western Culture: Contemporary Perspectives. ed. Susan R. Suleiman, 99–118. Cambridge, 1986.Google Scholar
Kuchar, Gary. “Aemilia Lanyer and the Virgin’s Swoon: Theology and Iconography in Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum .” English Literary Renaissance 37.1 (2007): 47–73.10.1111/j.1475-6757.2007.00093.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lanyer, Aemilia. Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Ed. Woods, Susanne. Oxford, 1993.Google Scholar
Leigh, Dorothy. The Mothers Blessing Or The godly counsaile of a gentle-woman not long since deceased. London, 1616.Google Scholar
Lewalski, Barbara. “Typological Symbolism and the ‘Progress of the Soul’ in Seventeenth-Century Literature.” In Literary Uses of Typology from the Late Middle Ages to the Present. ed. Earl Miner, 79–114. Princeton, 1977.Google Scholar
Lewalski, Barbara. Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric. Princeton, 1979.Google Scholar
Lewalski, Barbara. “Seizing Discourses and Reinventing Genres.” In Aemilia Lanyer (1998), 49–59.Google Scholar
Loarte, Gaspar. Instructions and aduertisements, how to meditate the misteries of the rosarie of the most holy Virgin Mary. London, 1597.Google Scholar
Longfellow, Erica. Women and Religious Writing in Early Modern England. Cambridge, 2004.10.1017/CBO9780511483707CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loughlin, Marie H. “‘Fast ti’d unto them in a golden chain’: Typology, Apocalypse and Women’s Genealogy in Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum .” Renaissance Quarterly 53.1 (2000): 133–79.10.2307/2901535CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works. Ed. Pelikan, Jaroslav and Lehmann, Helmut T.. 55 vols. Philadelphia, 1955–86.Google Scholar
Luxon, Thomas. Literal Figures: Puritan Allegory and the Reformation Crisis in Representation. Chicago, 1995.Google Scholar
McBride, Kari Boyd. “Sacred Celebration: The Patronage Poems.” In Aemilia Lanyer (1998), 60–82.Google Scholar
McBride, Kari Boyd, and Ulreich, John C.. “Answerable Styles: Biblical Poetics and Biblical Poetics in the Poetry of Lanyer and Milton.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 100.3 (2001): 333–53.Google Scholar
McManus, Barbara. “Eve’s Dowry: Genesis and Pamphlet Controversies about Women.” In Women, Writing, and the Reproduction of Culture in Tudor and Stuart Britain. ed. Mary Burke, Jane Donawerth, Linda Dove, and Karen Nelson, 193–206. Syracuse, 1999.Google Scholar
Miller, Naomi. “(M)other Tongues: Maternity and Subjectivity.” In Aemilia Lanyer (1998), 143–66.Google Scholar
Molekamp, Femke. “Reading Christ the Book in Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeroum (1611): Iconography and the Cultures of Reading.” Studies in Philology 109.3 (2012): 311–32.10.1353/sip.2012.0018CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molekamp, Femke. Women and the Bible in Early Modern England: Religious Reading and Writing. Oxford, 2013.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665402.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neff, Amy. “The Pain of Compassio: Mary’s Labour at the Foot of the Cross.” Art Bulletin 80 (1998): 243–73.Google Scholar
Osherow, Michele. Biblical Women’s Voices in Early Modern England. Aldershot, 2009.Google Scholar
Osherow, Michele. “Wives, Fears and Foreskins: Early Modern Reproach of Zipporah and Michal.” In Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture. ed. Brownlee, Victoria and Gallagher, Laura, 75–94. Manchester, 2015.Google Scholar
Perkins, William. A commentarie or exposition, vpon the fiue first chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians. Cambridge, 1604.Google Scholar
Phillippy, Patricia. “Sisters of Magdalen: Women’s Mourning in Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.” English Literary Renaissance 31.1 (2001): 78–106.Google Scholar
Pettus, John. Volatiles from the history of Adam and Eve containing many unquestioned truths. London, 1674.Google Scholar
Poole, Kristen. “‘The fittest closet for all goodness’: Authorial Strategies of Jacobean Mother’s Manuals.” Studies in English Literature 35.1 (1995): 69–88.10.2307/450990CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preus, J. Samuel. From Shadow to Promise: Old Testament Interpretation from Augustine to the Young Luther. Cambridge, 1969.10.4159/harvard.9780674433052CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rienstra, Debra. “Dreaming Authorship: Aemilia Lanyer and the Countess of Pembroke.” In Discovering and Recovering the Seventeenth Century Religious Lyric. ed. Eugene R. Cunnar and Jeffrey Johnson, 80–103. Pittsburgh, 2001.Google Scholar
Rogers, John. “The Passion of a Female Literary Tradition: Aemilia Lanyer’s ‘Salve Deus Rex Judæorum.’” Huntington Library Quarterly 63.4 (2000): 435–46.Google Scholar
Schoenfeldt, Michael. “The Gender of Religious Devotion: Amelia Lanyer and John Donne.” In Religion and Culture in the English Renaissance. ed. Shuger, Debora and Claire McEachern, 209–33. Cambridge, 1997.Google Scholar
Snook, Edith. Women, Reading and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern England. Aldershot, 2005.Google Scholar
Speght, Rachael. A mouzell for Melastomus, the cynicall bayter of, and foule mouthed barker against Euahs sex. London, 1616.Google Scholar
Stafford, Anthony. The femall glory: or, The life, and death of our Blessed Lady. London, 1635.Google Scholar
Streete, Adrian. “‘What bloody man is that?’: Questioning Biblical Typology in Macbeth. ” Shakespeare 5.1 (2009): 18–35.10.1080/17450910902764264CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streete, Adrian, ed. Early Modern Drama and the Bible: Contexts and Readings, 1570–1625. Basingstoke, 2012.10.1057/9780230358669CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutcliffe, Alice. Meditations of man’s mortalitie. London, 1634.Google Scholar
Tavard, George Henry. The 1000 Faces of the Virgin Mary. Collegeville, 1996.Google Scholar
Tyndale, William. The Obedie[n]ce of a Christien Man. Antwerp, 1528.Google Scholar
Waller, Gary. The Virgin Mary in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Literature and Popular Culture. Cambridge, 2011.10.1017/CBO9780511974335CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wayne, Valerie. “Advice for Women from Mothers and Patriarchs.” In Women and Literature in Britain, 1500–1700. ed. Wilcox, Helen, 56–79. Cambridge, 1996.10.1017/CBO9780511470363.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, William. A Disputation on Holy Scripture against the Papists. Trans. Fitzgerald, William. Cambridge, 1849.Google Scholar
White, Micheline. “A Woman with Saint Peter’s Keys?: Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeroum (1611) and the Priestly Gifts of Women.” Criticism 45.3 (2003): 323–41.10.1353/crt.2004.0013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, John. Great Britains Salomon A sermon preached at the magnificent funerall, of . . . king, Iames. London, 1625.Google Scholar