The following version of the poem was used to create this guide: Shakespeare, William. The Rape of Lucrece. The Folger Shakespeare. Ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine. Folger Shakespeare Library, October 6, 2021. https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/rape-of-lucrece/.

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the line number from which the quotation is taken.

William Shakespeare is perhaps the most famous writer in the English language. He was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, married Anne Hathaway when he was 18, and fathered three children. Eventually, he moved to London, where he began a successful career as an actor, and eventually an even more celebrated career as a playwright. Between 1593 and 1594, the playhouses were closed due to the plague, and he authored a number of sonnets and some long narrative poems, including The Rape of Lucrece. These poems were popular during his lifetime, but have been less studied than his plays in the intervening centuries. In 1613, Shakespeare retired to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he died three years later.

The Rape of Lucrece is one of only a few long poems Shakespeare wrote. It retells an anecdote from Roman history, in which the chaste and beautiful Roman matron, Lucrece (or Lucretia) is raped by Tarquin, the king's son. Lucrece, ashamed at the violation and the loss of honor, commits suicide in front of her husband and father, who vow revenge on Tarquin. When the citizens of Rome see Lucrece's body carried through the streets, Tarquin and his family are ousted from their rule.

Shakespeare's version follows the historical accounts, taken from sources like Ovid and Livy, quite closely. He would have studied these texts in grammar school, and allusions to them can be found in many of his plays. Lucrece and Tarquin are mentioned in Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and Cymbeline. This poem, however, represents Shakespeare's most sustained engagement with this story and its themes of sexual violence, gender relations, and social structure.