Yet, I suggest that while Anne Clifford succeeded in life -- she was at last able to join the fellowship at Penshurst and through long life and tenacity to reclaim her lands -- Aemilia Lanyer succeeds in an imaginative vision: out of marginality, out 'of absence, darkness..., things which are not,' indeed out of weakness, Lanyer creates in Salve Deus a remarkable community of strength, present more powerfully and

It also widened her female audience much further than the small group of upper-class women with whom she was acquainted (ibid). Overall, this work represented Lanyer as a complex writer who possessed significant artistic ambition and "who like other women of the age wrote not insincerely on devotional themes to sanction more controversial explorations of gender and social relations" (Miller 360). In her work, Lanyer issued a call to political action

medieval romance has inspired literature for generations. The magic of the Arthurian romance can be traced to Celtic origins, which adds to it appeal when we look at it through the prism of post-medieval literature. The revival of the medieval romance can be viewed as an opposition against modern and intellectual movement that became vogue in modern Europe. These romances often emphasized the human emotions rather than the human

In addition, Lett (1987) emphasizes that, "Cultural materialists maintain that a society's modes of production and reproduction determine its social structure and ideological superstructure, but cultural materialists reject the metaphysical notion of Hegelian dialectics that is part of dialectical materialism" (80). Indeed, according to Bradshaw (1993), "the British cultural materialist knows that the 'radical,' 'subversive,' 'marginal,' or 'dissident' perspective is always superior (9). This author maintains that British cultural

Chastity in Renaissance Literature and Political Power Chastity was a concept that was promoted throughout Renaissance society by the church and those in political power. Chastity was promoted not only as a virtue and measure of the worthiness of a woman at the time of her marriage, it was also utilized as a means to repress women and their ability to gain their own power in society. However, in some ways,

Catherine the Great vs. Elizabeth I Elizabeth I of England and Catherine II or Catherine the Great of Russia were both of noble birth. Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his second queen, Anne Boleyn (911 Encyclopedia 2004). She was born on September 7, 1533 at Greenwich Palace almost 200 years before the birth of Catherine the Great of Russia. Elizabeth's death was met with much frustration