SHAKESPEARE’S THE RAPE OF LUCRECE: PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF ITS LITERARY AND DRAMATURGICAL APPROPRIATIONS
SHAKESPEARE’S THE RAPE OF LUCRECE: PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF ITS LITERARY AND DRAMATURGICAL APPROPRIATIONS

Summary/Abstract: Though from their inception Shakespeare’s works have been re-written, restructured and re-created in various adaptations, his poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece have rarely been included in this practice.1 Even a cursory survey of the worldwide various appropriations of his artistic achievements indicates that for various reasons – prominence, cultural and political relevance, controversy, historical taste, circumstances – they are mainly Shakespeare’s plays, which generate ‘‘the desire”, as Jacques Derrida calls this phenomenon in a different context, ‘‘to launch” the already written texts in as many different forms as possible (1985: 157–158). In other words, his non-dramatic works somehow escape the interest of writers, who capitalize on the concept of Shakespeare as the greatest potential of variability, indecidability and plurality, which triggers their desire to respond, and frequently ‘‘perfect” him in an adaptative process. Since in the Elizabethan times the popularity of The Rape of Lucrece greatly contributed to Shakespeare’s reputation and fame, its current marginal status is disconcerting.2 Published in 1594, the poem went through eight editions before 1640 (Halliday 1964: 402). As presenting the enthusiastic response of its first readers, Patrick Cheney convincingly advocates The Rape of Lucrece must have significantly help Shakespeare forge his identity as a publishing author and poet. After its publication, all of a sudden, ‘‘Shakespeare” did indeed become a ‘‘national poet-playwright,” whose name sold books (Cheney 2005: 142).

• Details
• Contents