Essay Questions

Explain the predominant allusion in “Salue Deus Rex Judaeorum”.

Lanyer maximally exploits substantive Religious Allusion: “That very Night our Saviour was betrayd,/ Oh night! exceeding all the nights of sorrow, /When our most blessed Lord, although dismayd,/Yet would not he one Minutes respite borrow,/ But to Mount Oliues went, though sore afraid,/ To welcome Night, and entertaine the Morrow;/ And as he oft vnto that place did goe, So did he now, to meet his long nurst woe.” Here, Lanyer alludes to the tribulations of Jesus’ passion which are ascribed to human disloyalty. Jesus weathered punishing distress throughout his passion. The religious allusion informs the reader about the impetus for Lanyer’s poetic views. Additionally, Lanyer integrates the Old testmanet when she writes about the mortal sin: “Our Mother Eue, who tasted of the Tree,/ Giuing to Adam what she held most deare,/ Was simply good, and had no powre to see,/ The after-comming harme did not appeare:/ The subtile Serpent that our Sex betraide,/ Before our fall so sure a plot had laide.” Alluding to the Old Testament calls attention to the underpinning of sin among humanity. Accordingly Lanyer exhibits her mastery of the Bible by diversifying the verses that she integrates in her poetry.

Summarize Lanyer’s ideology about ‘greatness’ in “To the Ladie ANNE, Countesse of Dorset”.

Lanyer writes, “Greatnesse is no sure frame to build vpon,/ No worldly treasure can assure that place;/ God makes both euen, the Cottage with the Throne,/ All worldly honours there are counted base,/ Those he holds deare, and reckneth as his owne,/ Whose virtuous deeds by his [especiall] grace/ Haue gain'd his loue, his kingdome, and his crowne,/ Whom in the booke of Life he hath set downe.” Worldly ‘greatness’ is posturing; thus, it could vanish straightforwardly. The practicality of mortality, which sways all classes, is the foremost contributor of the temporariness of ‘greatness.’ ‘Greatness’ cannot substitute virtues particularly when it is instituted on the worldly treasures. An individual who may be considered to be great among humans may be categorized as a disgrace according to heavenly canons.