The Trees of the Muses in Aemilia Lanyer’s “The Description of Cooke-ham” (1611)

This essay analyses the symbolism of trees in Aemilia Lanyer’s poem “The Description of Cooke-ham” (1611) to highlight her mnemonic, protofeminist reconstruction of nature. Contrary to what other critics have suggested, the poem’s evocation of nature cannot be reduced to an early example of what John Ruskin called “pathetic fallacy”. While nature is presenting as feeling, it is not solely the projection of the persona’s emotions that are being expressed. The anthropomorphisation of trees acknowledges the alterity of nature as the speaker strives to offer an interpretation that does resonate with her own feelings as she leaves the estate. Their distinctive species and characteristics take on symbolic meanings that tie “The Description of Cooke-ham” to the long religious poem to which it was appended, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Moreover, the references to Philomela and Echo – two myths that connect women’s experiences and nature – signal Lanyer’s poetic attempt to recover the valley of the Muses of Greek mythology by displacing it into an English pastoral context. More than landmarks that illustrate the poem’s topographical function, the trees of Cooke-ham are essential to Lanyer’s poetics by connecting the natural and the female in their commonality.