It also widened her female audience much further than the small group of upper-class women with whom she was acquainted (ibid).

Overall, this work represented Lanyer as a complex writer who possessed significant artistic ambition and "who like other women of the age wrote not insincerely on devotional themes to sanction more controversial explorations of gender and social relations" (Miller 360).

In her work, Lanyer issued a call to political action by noting several Old Testament women who changed the course of ancient Jewish history through their bravery, humor and valor, and she recalled the favor Christ demonstrated to women in a variety of actions and by electing them as custodians of his salvational message (ibid 362). The story covered Christ's betrayal by male apostles, the arraignment before male authorities to whom Lanyer addressed complaints, and the account of Christ's procession to Calvary, the crucifixion and the drama of the...
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