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The Rape of Lucrece and Shakespearean Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Harold R. Walley
Harold R. Walley*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University, Columbus 10
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Extract

Since its initial vogue during the lifetime of Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece has received short shrift from the general public and little more attention from critics and scholars. This relative neglect has done much to obscure the actual importance of the poem; for, quite apart from its intrinsic merits as poetry, The Rape of Lucrece constitutes one of the most explicit and illuminating documents which bear upon Shakespeare's development, and especially upon his coming of age as an artist. Written almost certainly during the year immediately preceding its registration on 9 May 1594, and hence in the interval between Shakespeare's apprentice experiments in the theater and his mature dramatic achievements with the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the poem provides unique information about Shakespeare at a crucial point in his career. Frankly advertised, moreover, as a serious poem on a serious theme, it bears every evidence of having been undertaken by its author as a premeditated and highly self-conscious bid for recognition as a serious literary artist. Indeed, in the deliberate thoughtfulness of its conception and the conscientious care of its execution The Rape of Lucrece is one of the most laborious and studied works of art that Shakespeare ever produced. And as such, it affords a revealing index to the kind of thinking imposed on its creator at the time, and by the process, of its creation.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 76 , Issue 5 , December 1961 , pp. 480 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1961

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References

Note 1 in page 481 Citations of Lucrece are by line and from Shakespeare's Poems, ed. H. E. Rollins (New Variorum, Phila., 1938). For the plays, references are to The Complete Works of Shakespeare, ed. Hardin Craig (Chicago, 1951).

Note 2 in page 481 Cf. Lear, iv.vi.153 ff: “see how yond justice rails,” etc.

Note 3 in page 481 Cf. Hamlet, i.iii.78 ff. Hamlet's distrust of his own capacities increases steadily through the repeated disillusionments of the first two acts until it culminates in his demand for “grounds More relative than this” (ii.ii.632—3). Othello suffers a similar experience leading to a comparable demand (cf. Othello, iii.iii.359 ff).

Note 4 in page 482 Cf. U. 134–147, 155–161, 183–186, 211–217, 302–329.

Note 5 in page 483 Lucrece, ll. 239–252, 267–280. Cf. Macbeth, i.vii,35–61; ii.ii,44–55.

Note 6 in page 483 Lucrece, ll. 512–539. Cf. Othello, iv.i.61–70.

Note 7 in page 483 Cf. Lucrece, 617–665.

Note 8 in page 483 Ll. 29–30, 78–84, 477–490; 257–280, 290, 365–371, 414–420, 558–560.

Note 9 in page 483 Ll. 288–299, 421–427, 495–497, 645–651.

Note 10 in page 483 Ll. 428–445, 464–483, 540–546. Significantly, the imagery which Shakespeare employs to describe this condition is that of revolting slaves and of riotous soldiers pillaging a sacked city.

Note 11 in page 484 Ll. 187–196.

Note 12 in page 484 Ll. 239–242, 353–357, 477–490, 533–539.

Note 13 in page 484 Ll. 491–494, 526–532.

Note 14 in page 484 Ll. 495–504, 512–525, 540–546, 554–560, 667–689.

Note 15 in page 484 Troüus and Cressida, i.iii.85–88, 109–110, 116–126.

Note 16 in page 484 That this compressed treatment of the rape represents conscious design rather than enforced concession to the nature of the subject matter is indicated by the contrasting ex-pansiveness with which Shakespeare treats the attempted seduction in Venus and Adonis. The two situations are basically not dissimilar, but their respective treatments reflect a radical difference in Shakespeare's interest in them.

Note 17 in page 484 Lucrece, ll. 687–693, 715–735.

Note 18 in page 484 The paragraph digests lines 694–756 of Lucrece.

Note 19 in page 485 Cf. Lucrece, ll 764–784, 799–809, 848–872.

Note 20 in page 485 Ll. 925–999.

Note 21 in page 486 Ll. 820–833, 1060–64, 1478–91.

Note 22 in page 486 Ll. 806–819, 1319–21, 1709–15.

Note 23 in page 486 Ll. 834–847, 1240–67, 1611–59.

Note 24 in page 487 The two main components of this section are Lucrece's recapitulation of antecedent events and the choric lamentations of Lucrece and her kinsmen. It is interesting that these features are repeated, for the same dramatic purpose and with no more happy results, in Romeo and Juliet, in Friar Lawrence's awkward recapitulation of v.iii.229–269, and in the Capulet effusions of iv.v. Similarly, the manner of swearing vengeance bears a strong resemblance to Hamlet's swearing of his friends to silence about the ghost (i.v.140 ff); and the suicide of Lucrece is handled with the same attention to theatrical climax as that of Othello (v.ii.259 ff).