Book, Body, and Bread: Reading Aemilia Lanyer's Eucharist
2017; University of Iowa; Volume: 96; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0031-7977
Autores Tópico(s)Medieval Literature and History
ResumoWHEN AEMILIA LANYER'S READERS sit down to read her book, they find themselves beckoned to a dinner table. Through pages of her Passion narrative Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611), they will savor, Lanyer promises, something as delectable as sweet nector and ambrosia, sweet milk, and hony dropping dew (Salve 1735-38). (1) But this is no ordinary dinner party: their host has invited them to table of Eucharist. While such a meal might ordinarily consist of body of Christ, whom Lanyer describes as the food of Soules and of life Eternall (1775, 1778), she complicates matters by identifying object of their consumption not as Christ Incarnate but as Christ Book. Jesus does indeed represent spiritual sustenance for her readers, but their desire, Lanyer proposes, is that he may be Booke, / Whereon thine eyes continually may looke (1351-52). In Salve Deus, Christ is an all-consuming text, center of a reading feast and object of desire. When they pull up a chair at Lanyer's Eucharistic feast, they are there to eat a book. Salve Deus heralds virtues of female reading experience--what they read, why they read, and how they read differently from men. And there is no better religious context in which to situate such arguments than Eucharist, for vitality of this ritual--like vitality of Lanyer's own book and Christ-book she offers--depends upon its textuality. A Eucharist insists that bread and wine are signs that participants must read and interpret as body and blood of Christ. Many scholars have considered Lanyer's use of Eucharistic imagery, including Yaakov-Akiva Mascetti, who focuses her reading on first dedicatory poem, and Ina Schabert, who explains Eucharistic theme as evidence of Lanyer's sympathies and flair of her book. (2) What we lack, however, is an account of Salve Deus that extends implications of this imagery across entire body of book and considers theological particularities that position Lanyer's Eucharist within discourse. As I argue, it is Protestant, rather than Catholic, nature of Eucharist that makes it such an apt conduit for Lanyer's argument as she deploys this ritual as structural and theological framework of Salve Deus. As both a woman and a writer, Lanyer wields power of this ritual as she advocates for unity of women, dehierarchizes their relationship to each other, and empowers them as readers of metaphor. Discussing Lanyer in relation to a specific religious category is of course a difficult task, for her work demonstrates a diverse spectrum of religious thought, including influence of Catholicism and Judaism. Lanyer also carefully mediates between prevailing tides of Stuart court and residual Catholic pressures, especially considering that her opening poem is addressed to Queen Anne, a rumored Catholic. In associating Lanyer with Eucharist, my intent is not to categorize her as a Protestant poet, suggest a polemical force behind her book, or collapse all of her religious imagery into Protestantism, moves that would misrepresent complex religious negotiations that characterize both Lanyer's poetry and early modern England. As scholarship on Lanyer attests, poet relies on a diverse lexicon of religious representation, including strong ties to Catholicism. (3) In linking her work to Eucharist, I aim not to erase religious complexity but rather to illuminate centrality of this particular version of ritual to way Lanyer conceptualizes Passion narrative and her own poetry Seeing Salve Deus through lens of Eucharist--and this is precisely, I argue, what Lanyer asks of her readers--exposes new valences to themes so readily associated with her work, including her egalitarian vision, her pursuit of female patronage, and textuality of Christ. …
Referência(s)