Chapter 13: Emilia – Summary and Analysis

Spoiler notice: This page reveals key events from Chapter 13 of By Any Other Name. Proceed only if you have read up to this point.

Summary

In 1592 London, Emilia is pregnant—the child could be Lord Hunsdon’s or Southampton’s. Hunsdon pays her off and vanishes. Abandoned, she contacts her cousin Jeronimo, who forces her into a marriage with Alphonso Lanier, for which Hunsdon has paid £700. The wedding is a sham; Alphonso proves abusive, locking her in, beating her, and squandering her settlement. Emilia writes secretly, selling herbs to survive, and learns of her friend Isabella’s death from plague. Isabella’s last letter names Emilia as the poem that will outlive her, spurring Emilia to pen a sonnet for her unborn child (the future “Sonnet 29”). After giving birth to a son Henry, she meets Southampton at Paris Garden. Their reunion is passionate, but the next day comes news that Kit Marlowe has died. Grief buries her until a dream of Kit pushes her to resume writing. She supplies Shakespeare with “The Rape of Lucrece,” revises Titus Andronicus, and writes The Taming of the Shrew. She manipulates Alphonso into taking her to see it performed, watching her words ignite the crowd. Later, during Alphonso’s absence, she becomes pregnant by Southampton again and terminates the pregnancy. Channeling forbidden love and loss, she completes Romeo and Juliet—a tragedy born of her own story.

Key Events

Hunsdon ends their arrangement after Emilia’s pregnancy, leaving her directionless.
Emilia reaches out to cousin Jeronimo, who arranges her marriage to Alphonso Lanier.
Alphonso reveals the £700 dowry and beats her on their wedding night.
Isabella Lucchino dies of the plague; her letter inspires Emilia’s sonnet to her unborn child.
Emilia secretly meets Southampton, who learns she is married; they reconnect physically.
Emilia gives birth to a son, Henry, who has red hair and silver eyes.
Alphonso calls the baby a bastard and savagely beats Emilia.
Kit Marlowe visits, takes her erotic dedication poem, and gives it to Shakespeare, who publishes it under his own name.
Kit is killed; Emilia sinks into deep depression.
A dream of Kit rouses her; she contacts Shakespeare and supplies him with The Rape of Lucrece and a revision of Titus Andronicus.
She completes The Taming of the Shrew (originally Taming of a Shrew) and sees it performed at Newington Butts.
While Alphonso is away, she becomes pregnant by Southampton, aborts the baby, and then finishes Romeo and Juliet.

Character Development

Emilia Bassano Lanier: Transitions from abandoned courtesan to abused wife and secret playwright. She learns to separate her body from her mind during violations, uses submission as a weapon, and channels her rage and love into some of English drama’s most iconic texts. By the chapter’s end, she fully accepts that her greatest power lies on the page, not in the world that confines her.
Alphonso Lanier: Introduced as a passive, pockmarked pawn bought with £700, he quickly reveals a violent, drunken bully. His financial incompetence and physical brutality trap Emilia, but also sharpen her survival instincts.
Lord Hunsdon: Functions as a distant protector whose money can only temporarily shield Emilia. He disappears from her life, embodying the limits of even a powerful patron’s care.
Southampton: Remains Emilia’s idealized lover. He is tender, vows to create a home for them, but his inability to foresee the entrapment of her marriage highlights his privilege. His ignorance of her abortion underscores how much she must bear alone.
Kit Marlowe: Serves as Emilia’s truest confidant. Even in death, he appears as a dream-rat nudging her back to art. His deliberate provocation—handing her love poem to Shakespeare to fuel rumors—shows his wit and loyalty.
William Shakespeare: Solidifies his role as a front man. He is now a shareholder, increasingly well-dressed, and flirtatious, yet still reliant on Emilia’s work. His callous remark that no one would imagine her an author highlights the era’s blind spots.

Themes, Symbols, and Motifs

Forced Marriage as Economic Trade: Emilia’s wedding is explicitly priced at £700, revealing that a woman’s body and future are commodities even among family.
The Abuse of Power: Alphonso’s violence at home mirrors the systemic violence women endure in a patriarchal society. Emilia’s later “submission” is a calculated performance that flips the power dynamic.
Writing as Resistance and Survival: Emilia’s pen becomes her refuge. Her sonnet to her unborn child, her plays, and her poems are all acts of self‑preservation that outlast her abusers.
The Veiled Self: The phrase “message in a bottle” and the image of invisible ink held over a flame symbolize Emilia’s hidden identity and the potential for her words to be revealed only to the right reader—or spectator.
Performance and Identity: Seeing The Taming of a Shrew onstage allows Emilia to observe how her private critiques of marriage are received. The theater becomes a mirror; the act of watching others react is itself a moment of power.
Motherhood and Legacy: Isabella’s death‐letter (“you are the poem I penned from heart”) and Emilia’s sonnet both frame creativity as a child that outlives the parent, linking physical birth with artistic creation.
Love and Tragedy: The forbidden romance drives both the plot and the genesis of Romeo and Juliet. The abortion and the play’s tragic subtitle fuse personal grief with universal art.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 13 spans the years that forge Emilia into the invisible hand behind Shakespeare’s blossoming career. It dares to show her greatest love and her deepest humiliation inside a single timeline. Without this crucible—the loss of Hunsdon’s protection, the brutality of her marriage, the death of Kit, the second pregnancy she cannot risk—Emilia’s later plays would lack their raw emotional core. The chapter also marks the first time she witnesses her staged work echoing through an audience, planting the seed that a playwright can reshape the culture, even without a name. By drawing direct links between Emilia’s life and the composition of Sonnet 29, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, and Romeo and Juliet, Picoult recontextualises the Shakespeare canon as a woman’s survival diary.

Study Questions and Answers

How does Emilia’s marriage to Alphonso redefine her understanding of ownership over her own body and work?
Before the marriage, Emilia was a courtesan with some social agency; after, she is legally Alphonso’s property. Even the £700 settlement becomes his. She responds by creating a separate self in her mind during sexual assaults and by hiding her miniature, her writing box, and her earnings. Ownership over her body is lost, so she clings fiercely to ownership over her words.
Why is Isabella’s letter so pivotal for Emilia’s writing of the sonnet that begins “When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”?
Isabella calls Emilia the poem that will outlive her, making art synonymous with legacy. Grieving and pregnant, Emilia uses the sonnet to negotiate between despair and hope. The child becomes a physical embodiment of that legacy. The act of writing the poem is a promise to stop wishing for what she cannot have and to pour herself into creating something that will last.
In what ways does the performance of The Taming of a Shrew at Newington Butts serve as both a triumph and a warning for Emilia?
The laughter and engagement prove that her words have power. Yet she overhears a husband echo Petruchio’s logic to justify controlling his wife, and she sees a wife clench her teeth in silent rage. Emilia realizes that a play can hold up a mirror but cannot force the audience to change. The warning is that art can be co-opted by the very system she critiques.

← Previous Chapter | Book Hub | Next Chapter →