A. D. Cousins, Macquarie University

As might be expected, much of the more recent commentary on Lucrece has focused on the interrelated matters of politics, gender, and subjectivity. The poem's representation of the Roman world and its politics, especially its sexual/gender politics, has been studied; how Lucrece emerges from the variously political discourses of later Elizabethan society, and its negotiations with them, have been considered; the poem's representations of subjectivity in relation to patriarchy and rape have been widely discussed.¹ In focusing on such matters, most commentary has inevitably centered on the characterization of Lucrece herself. But as a result, the mutually constitutive nature of the characterizations of Tarquín, Collatine, and Lucrece has received insufficient attention.² Here I want to propose that by examining the reciprocal formation of consciousness and role among Tarquín, Collatine, and Lucrece as far as the beginning of the poem's rape...