SOURCE: Williams, Carolyn D. “‘Silence, like a Lucrece knife’: Shakespeare and the Meanings of Rape.” The Yearbook of English Studies 23 (1993): 93-110.

In the following essay, Williams analyzes the rapes of both Lucrece in The Rape of Lucrece and Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, and concludes that although little resolution may be reached regarding Shakespeare's treatment of rape, some understanding of the confusion of Shakespeare and his contemporaries concerning the issue of rape may be achieved.

Brief allusions to rape occur throughout Shakespeare's work, combining maximum effect with minimum critical perturbation. Issues often appear reassuringly simple: Macbeth's vision of ‘wither'd murder’ (ii. 1. 52) stealing with ‘Tarquin's ravishing strides’ (l. 55) depicts rape as an act of unmitigated evil, inflicting irreversible damage on helpless innocence; The Tempest offers no reason for the audience to wish Caliban's attempt on Miranda had succeeded. Complexities are also part of the act; when Henry V threatens the...