Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"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
About the Author
Vice President and Dean of Franklin and Marshall College,
Susanne Woods is also Director of the Women Writers Project at Brown University, where she taught for many years.