SOURCE: Coiro, Ann Baynes. “Writing in Service: Sexual Politics and Class Position in the Poetry of Aemilia Lanyer and Ben Jonson.” Criticism XXXV, no. 3 (summer 1993): 357-76.

In the following essay, Coiro explores issues of gender, class, and authorship in Lanyer's poetry and compares her work to that of Ben Jonson.

The growing and increasingly central interest in writings by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women is beginning to have some material effects on the literary profession. In the fifth edition of the Norton Anthology (published in 1986), for example, a literature teacher could find a couple of poems by Lady Mary Wroth, one psalm by the Countess of Pembroke, and two poems by Queen Elizabeth. In the just-published sixth edition (1993), the number of texts by women has significantly increased, both in number and variety. One notable change is the inclusion of Aemilia Lanyer as a major author, a figure until very...