Copyright
©
(2010)
JOHN
HUDSON
All
Rights
Reserved


AMELIA
BASSANO
LANIER
AND
THE
SHAKESPEAREAN
AUTHORSHIP:

AN
EXAMINATION
OF
HER
POETRY

By
John
Hudson



The
arguments
for
Amelia
Bassano
Lanier
as
a
major
co‐author
of
the
plays

are:


• her
literary
signatures
notably
the
‘swan
signatures’;


• the
Jewish
allegories
that
the
plays
contain
and
their
similarity
to
Salve
Deus;

• the
remarkable
fit
of
her
circumstances
and
social
networks
with
the
rare

knowledge
demonstrated
in
the
plays.


There
are
at
least
a
dozen
of
these
areas
of
fit.
Here
I
want
to
deal
with
just
one
of

them,
her
poetry
and
its
stylistic
similarities
to
and
differences
from
the
Shakespearean

canon.



(1)
Macro
Level
similarities
to
Shakespeare

Bassano
Lanier
is
documented
as
a
significant
poet.
Her
book
Salve
Deus
is
partly
in

prose,
but
contains
a
1840
line
poem
Salve
Deus,
a
210
line
poem
The
Description
of

Cooke‐ham,
a
220
line
poem
to
Lady
Mary
Sidney
and
some
shorter
works.
At
the

macro‐level,
the
volume
is
similar
to
the
Shakespearean
works
in
terms
of
innovation,

content,
literary
composition,
and
use
of
sources.



The
collection
is
highly
innovative—for
instance,
the
Cooke‐ham
poem
is
the
first

country
house
poem
to
have
been
written
since
Roman
times.
The
main
poem
is

unusual
in
mixing
up
the
sacred
and
the
secular
in
the
same
poetry,
the
volume
is
the

first
book
of
original
poetry
published
in
England
by
a
woman,
and
is
also
one
of
the
first

critical
commentaries
on
the
gospels.
Vickers
notes
that
“The
key
words
for

Shakespeare’s
stylistic
individuality…..are
variety,
inventiveness
and
functionality.”


The
innovativeness
of
Salve
Deus
is
comparable
to
Shakespeare’s
who
put
on
stage:
the

first
expression
of
female
sexual
desire,
the
first
humanistic
depiction
of
a
Jew,
the
first

to
show
a
black
man
as
a
hero,
the
first
romance
play,
the
first

play
to
show
naturalistic

speech
etc.




On
the
surface,
the
Salve
Deus
collection
seems
to
be
an
unShakespearean
collection
of

religious
patronage
poetry.
However,
as
an
apocalyptic
neo‐Platonist
poem,
Salve
Deus

actually
resembles
the
content
of
The
Phoenix
and
the
Turtle
and
has
strong

resemblances
to
Rape
of
Lucrece.
Furthermore,
as
Lanier
scholars
have
pointed
out,
the

subject
of
her
work
is
not
primarily
religious,
but
rather
social
relationships,
freedom,

equality
and
democracy,
and
about
unruly
women
trying
to
get
the
upper
hand
on
men

‐‐
the
same
kind
of
content
that
appears
in
the
Shakespearean
plays
‐‐
and
the
religious

materials
are
employed
as
a
framing
device.
Indeed
one
might
say
that
whereas
Salve

Deus
has
explicit
religious
content
and
latent
social
content,
this
reverses
the
situation
in

the
plays
which
have
explicit
social
content,
but
latent
religious
content.
It
is
as
if
the

material
at
the
deepest
level
of
the
plays
has
been
turned
inside
out.





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HUDSON
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In
terms
of
literary
composition,
Salve
Deus
is
also
similar
to
the
Shakespearean
works

in
incorporating
fictional
passages,
and
characters,
into
the
source
material.
For

instance,
the
key
passages
of
the
gospel
of
Matthew
are
incorporated
into
a
narrative
of

women,
and
new
imaginary
passages
about
Pilate’s
wife
and
an
angel
are
added
in.
Like

the
Shakespearean
works,
Salve
Deus
uses
Biblical
typology.
The
scholarly
compositional

process
is
similar
to
that
of
the
plays
and
is
so
complex
and
layered
that
it
has
been

described
as
being
as
“intractable
as
Shakespeare”
(Matchinske
438).



In
terms
of
sources,
the
Salve
Deus
prefaces
assume
a
community
of
noble
women,
and

uses
the
humility
topos
in
a
manner
similar
to
the
writings
of
Christine
de
Pisan
whose


work
does
not
seem
to
have
been
alluded
to
by
any
other
writer
during
the
English

Renaissance,
except
Shakespeare.
Her
Tale
of
Joan
of
Arc
referring
to
Joan
of
Arc
as
a

new
Deborah
is
used
in
Henry
VI
pt
1,
(1,2,83‐4)
and
a
passage
about
ingratitude
being

like
the
wind
from
Epistle
of
Othea
is
used
in
As
You
Like
It
(2,7,175‐9).
In
addition
Salve

Deus
also
draws
upon
other
Shakespearean
sources
including
Chaucer,
Gower,
Ovid,

Boccaccio
and
the
gospel
of
Matthew.




In
terms
of
such
general
criteria
as
philosophy,
including
profundity
and
metaphoric

richness,
the
Salve
Deus
collection
matches
the
deep
underlying
sets
of
meanings
in
the

Shakespearean
plays,
and
is
demonstrably
from
the
same
set
of
usages.
In
its
use
of

allegory
the
epic
Salve
Deus
poem
also
can
be
compared
to
several
satirical
crucifixion

parodies
in
the
Shakespearean
plays,
most
notably
in
A
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream.

Addressed
to
the
God
of
the
Jews,
the
epic
poem
appears
to
be
an
adaptation
of
the

Gospels,
focusing
on
the
Passion.
Beneath
the
superficially
pious
language,
Boyd
Berry

notes
that
the
main
poem
opens
and
closes
with
“a
sense
of
mischief,
perhaps
of
satire”

(Berry
212).



(2)
Similarities
of
Vocabulary
and
Allusions
to
Shakespeare

While
the
Salve
Deus
collection
refers
to
the
plays
of
Lyly
and
possibly
Daniel,
the

greatest
number
of
allusions
are
to
Shakespeare.
The
volume
features
the
Nine

Worthies
and
Holofernes,
while
passages
of
her
Cooke‐ham
poem
correspond
to

Midsummer
Night’s
Dream.
This
makes
Salve
Deus
the
earliest
work
to
make
allusions


to
both
these
plays,
and

the
third
earliest
to
make
allusions
to
either
of

them
at
all

(Sharpham
and
Chapman
quoted
from
MND
in
1607,

while

Dekker

in
1600
and
the

anonymous
I.M.
in
1598

referred
to
verses
of
LLL,
according
to
The
Shakespeare

Allusion
Book).
Let
us
examine
some
of
these
in
detail.



• As
Caroline
Spurgeon
points
out
in
her
work
on
Shakespeare’s
imagery,
these

plays
are
the
only
ones
to
pay
unusual
botanical
attention
to
how
frost
damages

plants
—
for
instance
Titania’s
speech
A
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream

(1596).


about
how
“The
seasons
alter:
hoary‐headed
frosts”
(2,1,107).
Yet
a
similar

comment
appears
in
the
Cooke‐ham
poem
which
refers
to
a
garden
in
which
the

flowers
die
“their
frozen
tops
like
Ages
hoarie
haires”
(line
143).



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HUDSON
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• Similarly
the
poem
uses
the
unusual
combination
of
words
‘warble’,
‘bird’
and

‘ditty’
and
although
these
are
common
tropes,
a
search
on
the
EEBO
database

reveals
that
they
appear
all
together
in
only
one
other
text
of
the
period
—
the

speeches
of
Oberon
and
Titania
in
Act
5
of
A
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream.
As
for

the
combination
of
the
words
‘Philomela’,
‘ditty’
and
‘pretty’,
those
appear
all

together
in
the
Shakespearean
poem
number
14
in
The
Passionate
Pilgrim.
So

the
language
of
the
Cooke‐ham
poem
neatly
bridges
two
different

Shakespearean
texts.




In
the
Salve
Deus
poem
and
the
prefaces
there
are
also
significant
similarities
of


Shakespearean
vocabulary,
several
of
which
are
the
only

known
usages.
The
first
of

these
is
an
allusion

to
the
death
of
Pyramus

as
a
crucifixion
allegory,
which
implies

Lanier
has
an
extremely
unusual
knowledge
of
the
meaning
of
this
play:



• Salve
Deus
continues
the
allusions
to
A
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream.
Since
Salve

Deus
is
a
crucifixion
parody,
it
is
highly
significant
that
Lanier
has
borrowed

from


the
parodic
crucifixion
of
Pyramus.
The
unusual
word
“imbrue”
(meaning
to
stain

in
blood)
which
is
used
in
Salve
Deus
to
implore
Pilate
not
to
proceed
with
the

crucifixion
”Do
not
in
innocent
blood
imbrue
thy
hands”
(line
750),
is
paralleled

in
Thisbe’s
words
“come
blade,
my
breast
imbrue.”
This
term
is
rare,
used
by
at

most
1%
of
contemporary
writers,
but
it
could
perhaps
have
been
derived
from

one
of
them.
More
conclusive,
is
the
description
of
Jesus
in
Salve
Deus
“his
lips

like
lilies”
which
resembles
Thisbe’s
comment
about
Pyramus
in
his
allegory
as

Jesus
“these
lily
lips,
this
cherry
nose.”
According
to
the
EEBO
database,
these

are
the
only
two
appearances
of
this
peculiar
metaphor
until
1629,
and
since

both
are
being
applied
to
crucifixions
they
must
be
connected.
Evidently,
Lanier

knew
that
the
death
of
Pyramus
was
a
crucifixion
allegory‐‐‐‐which
was
only

rediscovered
in
the
21st
century.

• The
letter
to
Mary
Pembroke
makes
a
unique
reference
to
“faire
Dictina”
as
the

moon
goddess
who
appears
also
as
“Dictima”
in
Love’s
Labor’s
Lost
(4,2,37).

Each
is
an
absolute
hapax,
used
only
once
in
English
literature.

• Salve
Deus
even
uses
the
same
imagery
for
Jews
referring
to
“Jewish
wolves”

found
only
in
The
Merchant
of
Venice
where
Shylock’s
desires
are
“wolvish”.



In
addition,
Salve
Deus
explicitly
recalls

Rape
of
Lucrece
which
Lanier
refers
to
in
the

words
"T'was
Beautie
made
chas(t)e
Lucrece
loose
her
life"
(SD
211).
It
has
been

suggested
that
the
entire
crucifixion
account
in
Salve
Deus
was
actually
modeled
on
the

Rape
of
Lucrece
(which
it
quotes
directly
in
the
odd
expression
“no
excuse
nor
end”
(SD

line
832/ROL
line
238).
Bowen
notes
that
Lanier’s
stanzas
“simultaneously
veer
away

from
and
recall
Shakespeare’s
seven‐line
rhyme
royal
in
Lucrece”
(Barbara
Bowen
‘
The

rape
of
Jesus:
Aemilia
Lanyer's
Lucrece’
in
Marxist
Shakespeares
pg
111).


• Salve
Deus
also
uses
similar
imagery
to
Lucrece,
and
refers
in
anticipation
to

blood
being
used
to
‘wash’
(ROL
1258),
before
a
reference
to
a
‘purple
fountain’

(ROL
1785)
and
crimson
blood
bubbling
‘in
two
slow
rivers’
(ROL
1789)
which


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resembles
the
souls
bathing
their
wings
in
the
blood
of
Jesus
as
a
fountain
of
life

in
Salve
Deus
(SD
1730‐35).
There
are
also
resemblances
here
to
Julius
Caesar

where
at
Caesar’s
death
people
drink

the
“reviving
blood”
from
his
wounds,
so

that
his
body
is
compared
to
a
fountain

“like
a
fountain
with
an
hundred
spouts/

Did
run
pure
blood;
and
many
lusty
Romans/
Came
smiling
and
did
bathe
their

hands
in
it””
(2,2,77‐9).
Indeed
they
are
invited
to
“bathe
our
hands
in
Caesar’s

blood/
up
to
the
elbows”
(3,1,106).



Unusual
uses
of
Shakespearean
vocabulary
which
appear
in
the
volume
include
the

word
‘thoughted’
which
had
previously
appeared
in
only
seven
texts,
two
of
which
were

Shakespearean.
An
incomplete
list
of
words
that
were
first
used
by
Shakespeare
and

that
appear
in
the
Salve
Deus
collection
include
‘accused’,
‘discontent’,
‘amazement’,

‘dawn’,
‘design’,
‘embrace’
and
‘majesticke’.




(3)
Dramatic
Structure

Salve
Deus
and
its
many
prefaces
has
a
strange
literary
structure
that
features
different

kinds
of
audience
address.
It
uses
the
conventions
of
a
multiple
frame‐narrative
and

resembles
an
ongoing
commentary
to
the
audience
about
a
play
performance,

addressed
to
various
concentric
circles
of
audience.
The
‘performance’
onstage
is
a

historical
religious
play‐within‐a‐play
featuring
Jesus,
Pilate’s
Wife,
the
Virgin
Mary,
an

angel
and
so
on.
These
characters
occasionally
speak
directly,
but
mostly
are
dumb,

their
actions
being
narrated
in
the
third
person.
Then
there
is
the
main
2
person

contemporary
play
into
which
they
are
set,
comprising
the
narrator
and
writer
(Lanier

herself),
and
the
Countess
of
Cumberland
who
does
not
speak,
but
who
the
narrator

sometimes
addresses,
suggesting
the
relevance
to
her
life
of
what
has
been
happening.



The
next
concentric
circle
of
the
audience
includes
noble
ladies
like
the
Queen
and
Mary

Sidney,
who
would
perhaps
have
been
seated
in
a
special
room
for
nobility
above
the

stage
at
the
Globe
theater.
Beyond
them
is
the
audience
of
virtuous
readers
in
general.


The
narrator
addresses
each
of
these
audiences
separately.
Finally,
to
complicate
the

matter
further,
inside
the
address
to
Mary
Sidney
there
is
the
unusual
theatrical
device

of
a
masque‐within‐the‐play,
in
which
Mary
Sidney
and
classical
characters
are
actors.

None
of
this
is
a
typical
poetic
structure
such
as
found
in
Giles
Fletcher’s
Christ’s
Victory


(1610)
or
John
Ford’s
Christe’s
Bloodie
Sweat
(1613).
It
is
a
theatrical
structure.
The

peculiar
overall
structural
design
appears
to
be
the
direct
result
of
the
author
using
a

theatrical
model
which
features
the
inset

dramatic
devices
that
are
so

distinctive
in

Shakespeare.



Although
none
of
Salve
Deus
is
written
explicitly
as
a
drama

one
160
line
section
of
the

volume
has
dramatic
qualities
very
similar
to
a
Jacobean
masque.
Not
only
does
it

include
nymphs,
Juno,
Flora,
flowers
and
singing
of
praises,
but
most
unusually
Juno’s

chariot
descends
to
Earth.
This
is
also
what
it
does
in
the
79
line
masque
sequence
in

The
Tempest
which
includes
nymphs,
Juno,
Ceres,
plants
and
the
singing
of
blessings.


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Both
versions
seem
to
be
re‐writings
of
Daniel’s
The
Vision
of
the
Twelve
Goddesses

(1604).
This
inset
masque,
and
also
the
inset
dreams

(like
the
vision
of
Mary
Sidney)

resembles
the
inset
masques
in

Shakespearean
plays
like
Romeo
and
Juliet,
or
the
plays


that
are
inset
as
plays‐in‐plays.


(4)
Stylistic
similarities
to
the
late
plays

In
the
late
plays
the
author
revisits
some
of
the
themes
of
the
earlier
ones,
and
this
also

applies
to
the
way
in
which
Salve
Deus
revisits
Rape
of
Lucrece.
The
late
plays
are

focused
on
dreams
for
instance
in
Cymbeline
Posthumus
in
a
dream
sees
the
descent
of

Jupiter
on
an
eagle,
and
in
The
Winter’s
Tale
Hermione
appears
in
a
dream
to
Antigonus

(3,3,15‐17).
Similarly
the
conclusion
of
Salve
Deus
emphasizes
that
the
poem
came
to

the
author
in
a
dream.
Moreover,
in
the
address
to
the
Countess
of
Pembroke
titled

‘The
Author’s
Dream
to
the
Lady
Marie”,
a
dream
within
the
dream
which
is
a
re‐writing

of
Chaucer’s
House
of
Fame
and
Sidney’s
To
the
Angel
Spirit,
there
is
a
long
account
of

how
the
author
saw
the
Countess
in
a
dream
in
which
the
chariot
of
Juno
descended

from
the
sky
(as
it
does
in
The
Tempest).
The
landscape
is
also
populated
by
various

classical
deities
such
as
Dictina
,Bellona,
Aurora,
Minerva,
Apollo
and
Pallas.
This
is

similar
to
the
late
plays.



The
late
plays
are
characterized
by
a
distinctive
style

of
varying
sentence
length,

disjointedness,
obscure
reasoning,
and
digression.
Lanier’s
use
of
varying
sentence

length
is
shown
in
her
two
page
letter
to
Ladie
Margaret
which
consists
of
5
sentences

of
decreasing
length,
namely
145,141,76,43
and
22
words.
Disjointedness
is
literally
a

key
theme
of
Salve
Deus,
in
which
Christ
has
“His
joints
dis‐joynted”.
In
the
line
“His
holy

name
prophan’d,
He
made
a
scorn”
(SD
1133)
the
omission
of
the
verb
is
an
instance
of

the
effect
that
Macdonald
describes
causing
the
syntax
to
become
convoluted.
Lanier’s

verse
also
constructs
extremely
complicated
and
obscure
chains
of
reasoning.
For

instance,
by
conflating
the
unworthiness
of
her
presentation
of
Christ
with
her

unworthy
hand
she
is
“Establishing
her
primary
relationship
as
one
who
approaches

equality
with
the
Son
of
God…Thus
the
conventionally
humble
declaration
of

unworthiness
becomes
paradoxically,
a
claim
to
spiritual
and
epistemological
superiority

over
the
woman
she
would
have
as
her
patron”
(Schnell).
In
terms
of
digression,
in
one

of
the
few
examinations
of
the
rhetorical
textures
of
the
poem,
Boyd
Berry
‘s
article

“Pardon..though
I
have
digressed:
Digession
as
Style
in
Salve
Deus
Rex
Judaeorum”

argues
that
digression
is
the
“most
obvious,
frequent
and
fundamental
rhetorical

strategy
of
the
poem”

being
used
as
a
subversive
tactic,
for
instance
in
the
way
that
the

narrator’s
voice
is
interrupted
by
Eve’s
Apology,
and
the
constant
oscillation
between

the
Countess
of
Cumberland
and
Jesus.
Berry
notes
that
in
the
final
Cooke‐ham
poem
in

some
places
“so
many
rhetorical
moves
are
made
so
quickly
it
is
difficult
to
explain
them

briefly.”




There
are
particular
resemblances
to
Cymbeline.
That
Salve
Deus
and
Cymbeline
are

both
theophanies
is
significant,
but
the
resemblances
go
deeper
than
this.
Sleep
and


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dreams
are
used
prominently
in
both
works.
Both
were
composed
in
1610.
Both
are
set

at
the
time
of
Christ—one
at
his
birth,
the
other
at
his
death‐‐and
both
are
extremely

unusual
in
mixing
up
first
century
Romans
with
modern
contemporaries,
as
well
as

combining
noble
characters
with
those
of
low
birth.
Both
works
also
draw
on
Tasso,
in

the
case
of
Salve
Deus
for
the
use
of
ottava
rima
and
rules
of
composition,
and
in

Cymbeline
where
book
VII
of
Jerusalem
Delivered
provides
the
story
of
the
princess
who

is
taken
in
by
a
father
and
his
shepherd
sons.




The
works
draw
on
a
similar
repertoire
of
imagery,
even
when
they
differ
in
how
they

use
it.

Cloten’s
headless
corpse
comes
from
Book
VIII
of
Tasso,
whereas
the
headless

corpse
that
oddly
concludes
Salve
Deus
is
that
of
John
the
Baptist
and
comes
from
the

gospel.

The
“stately
cedar”
in
Cymbeline
appears
in
prophecy
and
will
have
its
branches

lopped.
The
“comely
Cedar”
in
the
Cooke‐ham
poem
is
only
a
metaphor,
used
to

describe
an
oak
tree.

The
flowers
in
Cymbeline
are
“never‐withering”
(5,iv,98)
whereas

at
Cookham
by
contrast

the
“very
leaves
did
wither”
both
of
the
flowers
and
fruit
.



According
to
Peggy
Munoz
Symonds,
Cymbeline
is
“primarily
concerned
with
marriage”

which
is
a
theological
allegory
for
the
”marriage
between
Christ
and
His
Church”
(pg

79).
So
is
Salve
Deus.

Imogen
(whose
alternate
name
Fidele
means
Faith)

embraces


the
headless
trunk
of
Cloten

thinking
that
it
is
her
husband,
and
carefully
naming
his

various
body
parts;
his
leg,
his
hand,
his
foot,
his
thigh,
his
brawns,
his
face.
Afterwards

her
husband
reappears
as
Posthumus

(born
after
death)
in
a
kind
of
resurrection,

“like

a
descended
god”
(1,Vii,169),

which
suggests
his
allegorical
identity
as
Jesus.

Imogen/Fidele
has
her
own
resurrection
as
a
“dead
thing
alive”
(5,v,123).
Salve
Deus
is

also
a
theological
allegory
for
the
”marriage
between
Christ
and
His
Church”.
The

Countess
of
Cumberland,
as
the
allegorical
Church
or
Bride,
is
oddly
invited
to
embrace

the
dead
and
mutilated
Jesus
“His
bleeding
body
there
you
may
embrace”
and

also
lists

his
body
parts:
his
joints
disjointed,
his
legs
hanging,
his
bloody
side,
his
members
torn,

his
eyes

dimmed

and
pierced
feet.



(5)
Verse
Form
and
Quality

Like
Shakespeare,
the
Salve
Deus
collection
uses
several
common
verse
forms.
The

letters
To
Lady
Susan
and
To
Lady
Katherine
are
written
in
iambic
pentameter
in
ababcc

form
like
Venus
&
Adonis.
To
Ladie
Lucie
is
in
rhyme
royal
ababbcc
like
The
Rape
of

Lucrece,
the
letter
To
Mary
Pembroke
uses
four‐line
stanzas
like
those
in
Phoenix
and

the
Turtle,
and
the
Cooke‐ham
poem
is
written
in
heroic
couplets
like
A
Midsummer

Night’s
Dream.
The
Salve
Deus
poem
itself
was
written
as
an
epic,
in
ottava
rima,
and

has
a
relationship
to
the
work
of
Giles
Fletcher
the
younger,
cousin
of
John
Fletcher
who

worked
on
Henry
VIII
and
Two
Noble
Kinsmen.



The
verse
quality
of
the
descent
of
Jupiter
in
Cymbeline
was
described
by
Dowden

as

“made
of
wood
that
has
no
resonance”
and
Bloom
notes
“
it
is
certainly
an
outrageous

parody
of
the
descent
of
any
god
from
a
machine,
and
we
are
expected
to
sustain
it
as

travesty"
(Bloom
634).
It
is
a
deliberate
attempt
to
draw
attention
to
the
play’s
own


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HUDSON
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artificiality
with
“the
artificial
mode
and
incantatory
verbal
style
of
this
episode,
with
its

archaic
diction
and
its
old‐fashioned
verse
forms”
(Wells
1997;357).
However
Wells
also

notes
that
it
resembles
the
appearance
of
the
god
Hymen
in
As
You
Like
It,
or
the

appearance
of
Diana
in
Pericles.

The
verse
in
Salve
Deus
also
seems
to
be
a
parody—it
is

simply
1840
lines
long—and
this
may
help
explain
its
verse
quality.



Shakespearean
verse
is
not
of
uniform
quality.
In
the
Shakespearean
canon,
form
and

situation
very
heavily
influence
vocabulary—style
is
a
contingent
and
derivative

variable.
As
Vickers
puts
it
“the
chief
characteristics
of
Shakespeare’s
verse
are
variety,

flexibility
and
adaptation
to
the
characterization
of
a
huge
number
of
speakers.”

His
book
Counterfeiting
Shakespeare


gives
two
examples.
In
the
plays
the
terms

‘while’,
‘whilst’,
and
‘whilest’
occur
two
or
three
times
more
than
‘whiles’,
whereas
in

the
sonnets
this
is
reversed.
So
the
kind
of
verse
structure
being
used
shapes
the

vocabulary.

Equally,
Latinate
speech
represents
about
20%
of
the
language
at
the

opening
of
King
Lear,
but
this
declines
to
almost
zero
when
Lear
is
offering
Cordelia
in

marriage.
So
social
situations
profoundly
influence
the
vocabulary
and
speech.

One

would
expect
that
if
the
author
had
previously
been
writing
under
an
allonym
but
now

was
writing
under
her
own
name,
was
writing
Jacobean
patronage
poetry,
and
was

using
the
conventions
of
explicit
religious
verse,
as
well
as
an
epic
verse
structure—and

a
totally
different
genre‐‐‐
that
the
verse
form
which
resulted
would
necessarily
be


different
from
anything
in
the
canon.
However
the
underlying
vocabulary,
compositional

technique,
and
the
content
would
be
similar.
That
is
essentially
what
we
find.



Lanier
left
us
a
self
portrait
in
her
alter
ego
Touchstone,
who
is
a
great
poet
like
Ovid

whose
works
are
not
understood,
but
whose
verse
is
notably
bad;



 If
a
hart
do
lack
a
hind,



 
Let
him
seek
out
Rosalind.




 If
the
cat
will
after
kind,




 So
be
sure
will
Rosalind.




 Winter‐garments
must
be
lin’d,




 So
must
slender
Rosalind.

In
Elizabethan
literary
theory
the
honeyed
surface
of
the
verse
was
a
contrivance,

designed
to
be
deliberately
misleading;
the
real
meaning
lay
below
and
the
entire

metatheatric
structure
of
the
theater
was
directed
to
reminding
the
audience
that
what

they
saw
was
not
reality.

Only
the
Description
of
Cooke‐ham
poem,
which
uses
the

convention
of
the
pastoral,
has
a
verse
style
that
might
be
found
in
the
plays,
notably
in

A
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream.

The
Salve
Deus
epic
does
not
create
a
honeyed
surface
of

verse
but
is
making
the
parody
more
directly.
The
apt
comparison
to
make
is
to

Shakespearean
parodic
verse,
such
as
the
worthies
in
Love’s
Labors
Lost,
the
plays

staged
by
the
players
in
Hamlet,
the
play
within
the
play
in
A
Midsummer
Night’s

Dream,
or
the
descent
of
Jove
in
Cymbeline,
and
all
of
these
are
unique.




Although
the
stylistic
differences

between

most
of
the
Salve
Deus
poems
and
the

grandeur
of
the
verse
found
in
the
plays
are
obvious,
their
significance
to
the
big
picture


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HUDSON
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is
difficult
to
assess.
In
the
visual
arts
there
have
been
many
instances
of
experts
making

judgments
based
on
their
subjective
opinion
of
style,
only
to
find
that
these
fall
apart
on

technical
grounds
such
as
the
date
at
which
a
certain
paint
pigment
was
manufactured.

Unfortunately
stylometric
studies
quantifying
the
use
of
pauses,
punctuation,
weak

endings,
and
metrical
studies
of
verse
style
in
the
plays


cannot
be
applied
to
a
work
of

a
different
genre
which
is
not
theatrical
blank
verse.
As
Vickers
recognizes
“a
basic

principle
of
authorship
studies”
of
verse
form
is
“we
must
compare
like
with
like—that
is

by
analyzing
work
from
the
same
genre,
or
the
same
medium,
and…from
the
same

period”
(pg
145).
Since
there
is
no
example
of
Shakespearean
Jacobean
patronage

poetry
to
use
as
a
comparator,
stylometric
verse
form
comparisons
are
not
a
usable

measurement
technique‐‐although
the
examples
of
Shakespearean
parody
permit

some
limited
comparison
in
other
respects,
notably
rare
and
preferred
words
usages

and
metaphors.
It
is
precisely
because
of
Shakespeare’s
variety
and
inventiveness,
and

the
changes
that
took
place
in
the
late
style,
that
we
cannot
exclude
the
possibility
that

the
author
may
have
written
the
long
parodic
religious
epic
poem
of
Salve
Deus.



However,
unlike
the
case
in
assessing
the
authorship
of
the
Funeral
Elegy,
in
this
case

verse
style
is
just
one
of
many
variables
on
which
to
evaluate
this
contender
for
the

Shakespearean
authorship.

There
are
some
obvious
stylistic

similarities
in
Bassano

Lanier’s
work
–they
occur
largely
in
the
Cooke‐ham
poem
in
relation
to
A
Midsummer

Night’s
Dream.
To
see
the
Shakespearean
similarities
across
the
whole
of
her
work
it
is

necessary
to
look
beyond
the
contingencies
of
verse
style
to
all
the
other
aspects
of
the

poetry
that
show
a
close
fit
to
the
Shakespearean
texts.
Fortunately
we
do
not
have
to

be
limited
by
the
precise
match
of
the
poetry

because
this
is
just
one
out
of
many

variables
such
as
the
other
examples
of
rare
knowledge
and
social
networks

(eg.

knowledge
of
the
small
town
of
Bassano
and
unusual
knowledge
of
recorder
music)
that

show
an
unquestionable
match.

It
is
indeed
the
understandable
preoccupation
of

Shakespearean
scholars
with
the
beauty
of
the
verse‐‐‐and
not
looking
beyond
at
some

of
the
other
issues—that
has
meant
it
has
taken
hundreds
of
years
for
Bassano
Lanier
to

be
put
forward
as
an
authorship
contender.


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