The Description of Cooke-ham Essay Questions

How does the poem utilize religious imagery?

Throughout “The Description of Cooke-ham,” Lanyer reinterprets Christian characters and narratives from a feminist perspective. The poem as a whole likens the departure of the women from Cooke-ham to the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, and incorporates Edenic metaphors in its description of a utopian community consisting of women. The speaker also compares Margaret Clifford’s religious wisdom to that of Jesus Christ and his disciples; her abidance of divine law to that of Moses; her worship to that of David; and her altruism to that of Joseph. By placing the countess alongside these male Biblical figures, Lanyer imagines female leadership in the Christian community.

On the other hand, the poem also alludes to Greek mythology. Pagan allusions are similarly gendered: Philomela appears twice in the form of a Cooke-ham nightingale, reminding the reader of the subtext of rape and misogynistic power structures; the loss of pleasant sounds in Cooke-ham after the countess’s departure is compared to the death of Echo, similarly evoking the violence against female speech. In “Cooke-ham” Lanyer integrates Christian and pagan texts, as well as Biblical and pastoral tropes, to engage broadly with histories of female representation.

How does the poem portray Lanyer's relationship with her patron, Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland?

“Cooke-ham” explores various aspects of the Lanyer-Clifford relationship: the socioeconomic, the spiritual, the homosocial and/or homoerotic. With her affluence, high social rank, and acts of altruism, the countess not only sustains her beneficiary, but also inspires her awe—although this awe is eventually complicated by the speaker’s grief upon losing her friends to the inaccessible, elite spaces of the nobility. The poem suggests, on the other hand, that the countess is Lanyer’s spiritual and religious role model, an embodiment of Christian virtue, and the leader of a protected Christian space in which the poet thrives. Finally, the speaker’s description of the countess’s kiss on the oak tree—as “chase, yet loving” (Line 165) but unjustly bestowed upon an inanimate object—suggests a homosocial and homoerotic dimension in Lanyer’s desire for a close relationship with the countess.

Yet the biographical context in which this poem was written may complicate such portrayals of intimacy and fellowship between Clifford and Lanyer. The speaker indicates that “Cooke-ham” was written under the auspices of Clifford herself. Considering the dynamics of patronage, as well as the class distinction between the two women, laudatory descriptions of the countess may be read with skepticism.

Analyze the ending of the poem.

Lines 205–210 close “Cooke-ham,” with the speaker’s final musings of her own literary career and her relationship with the countess, her patron. The valediction in Line 205 (“This last farewell to Cooke-ham here I give”) repeats parts of Line 1 (“Farewell, sweet Cooke-ham, where I first obtained”), bringing the poem full circle, as well as back to the present in which the poet leaves Cooke-ham. The speaker then states that she herself may die, but that her poetry will eternally preserve the virtue and legacy of her patron—suggesting the unstable career of a woman poet writing without financial security, and her dependence upon aristocratic patronage. Lines 209–210 express the speaker’s wish to remain connected to her virtuous patron.

These final lines not only bring thematic closure to the poem, but also feature lexical complexity. The word “lodge” (Line 208) echoes the architectural imagery of the poem, and draws a sharp contrast between the poet’s “unworthy breast” (Line 208) and the Cooke-ham estate’s splendor. The word “Tying” (Line 210) evokes not only metaphysical connection, but also the unfulfilled desire for close physical contact between the poet and the countess. Finally, the word “rich” produces double entendre, as it may describe both the countess’s abounding virtue and her material possessions.