Aemilia Lanyer was an influential poet, noted as the first English woman to have a published volume of poetry. Her work, rooted in religious tradition and informed by a humanist education, challenged contemporary gender ideologies and beliefs. Lanyer demonstrated a profound engagement with classical literature, Latin, and the Bible, evident in her rhetorically skilled and stylistically rich poems. Her writing was deeply shaped by personal experiences, including financial struggles and disillusionment with male unreliability, lending her verses a compelling urgency and personal power.
Whitney's two volumes of verse miscellany, Sweet Nosegay (1573) and The Copy of a Letter (1567), were part of a literary trend of combining classical and Biblical references with vernacular sources. As well a selection of her original poetry, this volume includes Mary Sidney's version of the Psalms of David and Petrach's Triumph of Death. schovat popis