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Literal and Spiritual Births: Mary as Mother in Seventeenth-Century Women’s Writing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Victoria Brownlee
Victoria Brownlee*
Affiliation:
National University of Ireland, Galway
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Abstract

Mindful of the complex position of Christ’s mother, Mary, in post-Reformation Europe, this article examines how two women writers read Mary’s fleshly relationship with Christ. Reading the Bible typologically, Aemilia Lanyer and Dorothy Leigh determine that Mary’s material labor has spiritual consequences, because, in delivering Christ, she delivers God’s plan for salvation and inaugurates the new covenant. But, interpreting Marian maternity in this way, Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum and Leigh’s The Mothers Blessing also suggest that the new covenant initiates a form of maternity that has sustained spiritual resonance for all women and has profound implications for the female writer.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , Winter 2015 , pp. 1297 - 1326
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2015

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