Vocal Women, Silent Woman: Gender in the Noble Numbers

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Notes

¹Ann Coiro, who asserts that Julia is “co-priest” with Herrick, sees these two dirges as connected to the Julia poems.

²Miriam Starkman was perhaps the first to make this suggestion regarding the Dorcas poem: “One wonders whether in Dorcas's comeliness and good works there is not more than a hint of Christ's lætitia and caritas” (14).

³Robert Deming asserts that both Jephthah's daughter and Dorcas are also types of the Virgin Mary, as the dirge to the former is “devotional” and the poem to the latter echoes “Thou art blessed” (110, 112).

⁴Marcus argues that early readers would have seen in this poem a reference to Charles I (cf. Moison).