Grace, the Spirits of the Blood, and Mystical Marriage in Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum
Clarissa Chenovick
Explorations in Renaissance Culture July 16, 2026 DOI: 10.1163/23526963-05201007 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
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| Key points | Argues that Aemilia Lanyer unifies social and spiritual grace in Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum by drawing on early modern spirit-based physiology. On this reading, Lanyer presents divine grace as an embodied force, carried by the spirits of the blood, that constitutes the social bonds her poetry creates, so the volume's devotional and patronage aims should not be read as opposed. |
Abstract
Abstract: Aemilia Lanyer’s relationship to the prospective patronesses of her Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum has been the subject of much scholarship. The sheer number of dedicatory verses in Salve Deus have led some to read the volume’s devotional elements as a cynical cover for worldly ambition. At the same time, scholars interested in the potential erotic bonds Lanyer depicts between women have also given the poem’s social ends primacy over its devotional discourses. This essay reevaluates these assumptions by drawing out how Lanyer persistently unifies social and spiritual grace in Salve Deus . Showing how Lanyer draws on spirit-based physiologies to describe the operations of grace in both the patronage poems and in passages on the Passion of Christ, I argue that Lanyer uses physiological beliefs about the spirits of the blood to position divine grace as an embodied force that constitutes the social bonds she creates through her poetry.