Emilia Lanier

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Emilia Lanier (née Aemilia Bassano; 1569–1645) was an English writer and poet during the Elizabethan period. Her 1611 volume Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Hail, God, King of the Jews) has been seen as protofeminist. She has a claim to be one of the first women poets with a substantial body of commercially-published work in the English language. Lanier was a contemporary of William Shakespeare, and attempts have been made to identify her with Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" or even with Shakespeare himself. These ideas have inspired several works of fiction with Lanier as a character.

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