Sondergard, Sidney L.

Sharpening Her Pen" Strategies of Rhetorical Violence by Early

Modern English Women Writers. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna UP, 2002. Print.
87
asaptation of dialectic structures (Sondergard 87)
employs an impressive array of argumentative stategies specifically designed to serve
the female writer (Sondergard 87)
Barbara Lewalski Lanyers poem could be read as a thin veneer for a subversive
feminist statement (Lewalski, Jacobean 219).
Lynette McGrath- Lanyers book engages an acceptably conventional topic or genre to
conceal a level of subversive discourse (McGrath 341).
McGrathLanyer pursues the revolutionary possibility of self-defintion (McGrath
341)
Astrologist Simon Formans private diary contains intimate details on Lanyers.personal
life. [Q-reliability of Forman as a narrator???]
Sondergard formulates a view of Lanyers character from the rhetorical/lyrical techniques
she employs in her poetry and the few references to her in surviving 17th century
documents. She suggests Lanyers poetry acts as self-defintion- the use of self-defining
metaphors (Sondergard 87).
Lanyer codes her poems polemic on female authority with the accepted signifiers of
Christian spirituality, remaining autious about linkint them with unambiguous selfreference
extrapolate

88
Barbara Bowen Lanyer to reconceptualize the mater narratives of her culture
(Bowen
forced to negotiate culturally gendered boundaries even as she works to transgress or
to dissolve them (Bowen 277-278).
Sondergard-The rhetorical strategy Lanyer uses in visualizing a 17th century society of
women weakens the thrall of the existing male social hierarch through a dual strategy
(Sondergard 88_
FN 10 Sondergard- Lanyer promotes a bynocentric sstructure that exists apart from
male influence
Naomi J. MillerReligious devoutness is a commonality of the women, creating an
intangible barrier that separates the genders and strengthens female social bonds.
(Miller 149).

in relation to female homosocial bonds (Miller 149).

exhibits the potential not only to liberate them ffrom the sexualized forclosrue of female
subjectivity implicit in earthly heterosexual relations, but alos to connect them with one
another in spiritual homosocial bonding> (Miller 149).
group identity of female worshippers (Sdergard, FN 10
Lanyer introduces the unlikelihood that any ancestral lineage can be considered beyond
reproach or doubt when considered in the full context of history (Sondergard 880.)
to complement thie leveling technique, she recodes the royal court, the center of English
culture (Sondergard 88).
social superiority (Sondergard 88)
the possibility of redefining gendered power relations is clear in Lanyers use of//lines
(Sondergard 88).
Simultaneously empowers women while 88
89of
Analyzes 7-10 for To the Queens
the existing hierarchy can be manipulated, as Lanyer demonstrates, to give power to
women like Queen Anne, but the structure as concept remains problematic because such
power comes potentially at the expense of other women, like Lanyer herself 89
Second Strategy that challenges the male social hierarchy is to redefine power
through the example of Christs sacrifice (Sondergard
SEE Lines 45-46 In Queenes poem.
FN11
As the daughter of musician and mistree to ----, the cousin of Queen Elizabeth I, Lanyer
was familiar with court lifeits pettiness and its attraction, its risks and its rewards
(Sondergard 157).
FN13 (Sondergard 157)
Leeds BarrollLanyer IS COMPETING IN A VERY TOUGH ARENA, AGAINST
ACCOMPLISHED MALE POETS (ALREADY PRIVILEGED BECAUSE OF THEIR
GENDER (BARROLL
problemaized the examination of gender issues without concomitant analysis of class
conflicts (fn 13 Sondergard 137).
Lisa Schnell(qtd in Sondergard 158) Schnell suggests Lanyer is marginalized selfconsciously, it seemsboth as a woman and as a member of a socially inferior group
through her poetic dedications (Scnell 26).qt in FN AND Ng 4340.
Su Fan Ng notes the class tensions in Lanyers negotiation for patronage (NG 434).
Shannon Miller suggests Lanyer directs her texts dedication to a multiplicity of
patrons because she divides the form of influence each woman has on the text,

manipulating the superior class status of the dedicatees to her advantage, wit the effect
that different women, though most particularly Queen Anne and Margaret, Countess of
Cumberland, appear at moments to be the primary patron (Miller 137-8) (Sondergard
157).
90