The Rape of Lucrece
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The Rape of Lucrece (1594) is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Lucretia.
In his previous narrative poem, Venus and Adonis (1593), Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to write a "graver work". Accordingly, The Rape of Lucrece lacks the humorous tone of the earlier poem.
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Historical background
Lucrece draws on the story described in both Ovid's Fasti and Livy's history of Rome. In 509 BC, Sextus Tarquinius, son of Tarquin, the king of Rome, raped Lucretia (Lucrece), wife of Collatinus, one of the king's aristocratic retainers. As a result, Lucrece committed suicide. Her body was paraded in the Roman Forum by the king's nephew. This incited a full-scale revolt against the Tarquins led by Lucius Junius Brutus, the banishment of the royal family, and the founding of the Roman republic.
Publication and title
The Rape of Lucrece was entered into the Stationers' Register on May 9, 1594, and published later that year, in a quarto printed by Richard Field for the bookseller John Harrison ("the Elder"); Harrison sold the book from his shop at the sign of the White Greyhound in St. Paul's Churchyard. The title given on the title page was simply Lucrece, though the running title throughout the volume, as well as the heading at the beginning of the text, is The Rape of Lucrece. (The Arden edition of Shakespeare's [The] Poems, ed F.T.Prince, London and New York, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1960), from which this information is taken, calls the poem Lucrece.) Though not the enormous bestseller that Venus and Adonis was, [The Rape of ]Lucrece possessed an enduring popularity. Harrison published subsequent editions in octavo rather than quarto format; the second edition (O1) appeared in 1598, with two editions (O2 and O3) in 1600 and a fifth (O4) in 1607. Harrison's copyright was transferred to Roger Jackson in 1614; Jackson issued a sixth edition (O5) in 1616. Other octavo editions followed in 1624, 1632, and 1655.
Literary use
Shakespeare retains the essence of the classic story, adding that Tarquin's lust for Lucrece springs from her husband's own praise of her. Shakespeare later used the same idea in the late romance Cymbeline (circa 1609-1610). In this play, Iachimo bets Posthumus (her husband) that he can make Imogen commit adultery with him. He does not succeed, however is able to convince Posthumus he had using information about Imogen's bedchamber and body. Iachiamo has hidden in a trunk which has been delivered to Imogen's chamber under the pretence of safekeeping some jewels, a gift for her father King Cymbeline. The scene in which he emerges from the trunk (2.2) mimics the scene in The Rape of Lucrece. Indeed, Iachimo compares himself to Tarquin in the scene: "Our Tarquin thus, / Did softly press the rushes ere he waken'd / The chastity he wounded" (2.2.12-14). Lucrece is also closely related to the early Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus (circa 1590-94). In this revenge play, when the raped and mutilated Lavinia reveals the identity of her rapists, her uncle Marcus invokes the story of Lucrece to urge an oath to revenge the crime: "And swear with me--as, with the woeful fere / And father of that chaste dishonoured dame, / Lord Junius Brutus swore for Lucrece' rape-- / That we will prosecute by good advice / Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths, / And see their blood, or die with this reproach" (4.1.89-94).The rapist Tarquin is also mentioned in Macbeth's soliloquy from Act 2 Scene 1 of Macbeth: "wither'd Murther . . . With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design / Moves like a ghost" (2.1.52-56). Tarquin's actions and cunning are compared with Macbeth's indecision - both rape and regicide are unforgivable crimes. In Taming of the Shrew Act 2, Scene 1, Petruchio promises Baptista, the father of Katherine (the Shrew), that once he marries Katherine "for patience she will prove second Grisel, / And Roman Lucrece for her chastity" (3.2.288-89).
The raped woman
Lucrece is described as if she were a work of art, objectified in as if she were a material possession. Tarquin's rape of her is described as if she were a fortress under attack -- conquering her various physical attributes. Although Lucrece is raped, the poem offers an apology to absolve her of guilt (lines 1240-46). Like Shakespeare's other raped women, Lucrece gains symbolic value: through her suicide, her body metamorphoses into a political symbol.
Analysis and Criticism
See also
