An Explication Of

Aemilia Lanyer’s

“Eve’s Apology
In
Defense of Women”

Julie C. Cagle

12/8/10

9:00 a.m.
 When I read the title of Aemilia Lanyer’s poem, “Eve’s Apology in Defense of

Women”, I remember a smile came to my face. Although I had never read anything by Aemilia

Lanyer until last week, I knew when I saw the title for this poem that I was going to enjoy it. A

title that cleverly written on a subject that was controversial at the time (an apology for women

and an argument in behalf of women simultaneously), I felt could only be the beginning of a fun

and insightful reading opportunity. During the time period that she lived and wrote, female

writers had very minimal, if any at all, opportunity to gain any notoriety or recognition for their

works of literature. Being the first Englishwoman to have a volume of original poems published

and the first woman to make a bid for patronage, Aemilia Lanyer was definitely a door opener

for other female writers.

Narrating the poem through the character of the wife of Pontius Pilate, she

pleads with her husband to spare Christ’s life. She tries to reason with him that he would be

shedding innocent blood if he ordered Christ’ death (lines 1 through 14). The next two lines of

the poem serve a dual purpose. They are a direct message to women, telling them not find

happiness in the failure of men. They are also the introduction for the beginning of her defense

argument for Eve (representing all women).

Lanyer’s wife of Pilate brilliantly goes on to compare the wrongful persecution of

Christ by her husband, to the wrongful persecution that women had long been suffering at the

hands of men. And she brings up several points. On one hand she acknowledges that Eve had in

fact been duped, but one another hand Adam himself knew better and could have refused the

fruit. She furthers this point by essentially saying that Adam lacked in using discretion in the
matter (Line 51). She then goes on to point out that only Adam had the power to prevent

himself from eating the fruit (Line 56).

The wife of Pilate goes on to utilize a bit of wit and sarcasm in some of her next

remarks. She says, “Yet men will boast of knowledge, which he took from Eve’s fair hand, as

from a learned book.”(Lines 63 and 64), which she is basically saying that even though you men

claim the attitude of superiority and believe yourselves to be more intelligent than us women, it

was a woman who handed you that fruit of knowledge. It appeared to me that she was bringing

this double standard to the men’s attention. She then sarcastically makes the remark, ”If any

evil in her remain, Being made of him, he was the ground of it all.” (Lines 65 and 66), meaning

that even if evil did reside in Eve the burden is still on Adam because Eve was made from his

bone (I got a quite a chuckle out of this).

In the last three passages, she takes a more serious turn with her argument.

Aemilia Lanyer armors Pilate’s wife to go in for the kill. She argues that Eve’s weakness in the

garden is of no comparison to the depth of betrayal that Pontius Pilate committed against

Christ. She challenges him (and all men) to give women their liberty back. She gives the

reminder that men were born of women. The wife then challenges men ask themselves a

question. Why they should they have so much contempt for women being considered their

equals? Pointing out in an open declaration that the men are much greater fault than women,

where sin is concerned. Woman ate from a forbidden tree, but only men were directly

responsible for the death of Christ. She closes the poem by revealing the message sent to her in

a dream concerning the death of Christ, saying that Pilate should have nothing to do with his
death. She essentially asks him the question, “Why would you choose to condemn yourself in

order to seek the death of the son of God?”

It seems to me that along with her other accomplishments, Aemilia Lanyer could

also add being one of the first women’s lib activists to her resume. “Eve’s Apology in Defense of

Women” seems to be very ahead of its time, in regards to the blatancy of the message it sends

for equality of women. Lanyer skillfully blended the elements of wit, intelligence, sound

argument, and Christian history into the poem. Given the subject content of the poem, I

thought that it was brilliant on her part to choose the biblical comparisons of Eve and Pontius

Pilate to get her point across. She put up an irrefutable argument, I think.