ABSTRACT
Pembrokiana dominates and indeed emasculates the work's various figures for the male writer, but particularly Fraunce himself, by appropriating the power over poetic production that is traditionally the province of men in the early modern period. Pembrokiana is subsequently cast in the role of monstrous midwife, as the bear begs the lady to widen her wound to allow her cubs to be born. Pembrokiana shoots a phallic arrow, and a bear births cubs: the countess of Pembroke has engendered literary works upon a bestial, feminized author”. For early modern historians and antiquarians increasingly interested in English place-names as tokens of the ancient past, Pembrokiana's power to inscribe Amyntas toponymously would seem a straightforward compliment to the unprecedented success of Mary Sidney Herbert's (MSH's) efforts to ensure the continuance of her brother's memory through the actions of her literary executorship.
