Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Joel Fineman

Critical Essay by Joel Fineman

SOURCE: "Shakespeare's Will: The Temporality of Rape," in Representations, No. 20, Fall, 1987, pp. 25-76.

In the essay that follows, Fineman examines the imagery and rhetorical movements of The Rape of Lucrece and in particular considers the significance of time in the poem.

There is a great difference, whether any Booke choose his Patrones, or finde them. This hath done both

—Editors' Dedication to The Shakespeare First

Folio¹

The loue I dedicate to your Lordship is without end: wherof this Pamphlet without beginning is but a superfluous Moity.

—Shakespeare's Dedication to "The Rape of

Lucrece"²

Lucius Tarquinius (for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus), after he had caused his own father-inlaw Servius Tullius to be cruelly murd'red, and contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to...
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