The Rape of Lucrece

“The Rape of Lucrece,” written by William Shakespeare, was originally published in 1594 by Richard Field. This poem comes early in Shakespeare’s canon, with its original publication near the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, shortly after Taming of the Shrew and around the time of A Midsummer Nights’ Dream. As a companion piece to “Venus and Adonis,” Shakespeare dedicates “The Rape of Lucrece” to the Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, his patron. It went through many reprintings, even in Shakespeare’s lifetime, which marks it as a popular poem in the English Renaissance.

“The Rape of Lucrece” is written in rhyme royal: a form with seven-line stanzas that use a rhyme scheme of ABABBCC. Like much of Shakespeare’s work, this poem is written in iambic pentameter. In the British literary tradition spearheaded by Chaucer, this form is used for tragic subjects. Themes of this work are the interconnectedness of public and private life; the choices that lead to sexual and political violence; and how the female body is imagined and used.

Poet Biography

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in 1564. Little is recorded about his early life, but it is likely he was educated at the King’s New School, a grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he would have learned Latin and studied classical texts, such as

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