ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Pembroke's verses reveal the action of an independent mind reflecting on the knotty theological problems of her day particularly, the doctrinal problem of sacrifice. Pembroke's departure from the mainstream Protestant view of sacrifice also has important implications for the status of poetry as a means to devotion. Pembroke also explores these difficult questions in her dedicatory poems as she creates a complex choreography in which her dedicatee at times takes the place of God as recipient of the "sacrifice of praise" and at times becomes a third party in the gift-exchange relationship. As critics have noted, both Sidney's' psalms deviate from their sources by emphasizing the power and delight of poetry. While Pembroke's address to Queen Elizabeth tackles some of the problems of praise as a gift, her poem to her brother more straightforwardly investigates the sacrifice of praise as it appears in the psalms.
