William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error
Note: This article treats both of Shakespeare's narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece

Shakespeare probably completed much of the work on his two major narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, during periods of theatre closure to prevent further plague outbreaks in 1592-4. This historical circumstance has conspired with their publication history (almost always printed separately from the plays), and twentieth-century literary tastes to leave the poems somewhat in the shade. Though critical interest has increased steeply in the first decade of the twenty-first century, it has had to combat the tendency to see them as the poor relation of the plays, as suggested by the rather negative category: “the non-dramatic works”. This was not the case in the

3816 words

Citation: Scott-Baumann, Elizabeth. "The Rape of Lucrece". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 March 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7524, accessed 19 March 2024.]

7524 The Rape of Lucrece 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.