Extract: »In Shakespeare's Lucrece (or The Rape of Lucrece), Tarquin, with burning lust, approaches the bedchamber of the eponymous heroine. When he reaches the door to the room, he finds on it nothing to hinder his entry but "a yielding latch" (339). The ease with which he opens this door is striking, as it forms a clear contrast with the difficulties he previously encountered in breaking through multiple locks and doors on the way. However, this peculiarity has drawn scarce attention from critics, except for a few passing mentions in relation to the "yielding" of Lucrece to the rapist. In some cases, the condition of the last door is not only simply overlooked but conflated with that of the other doors and consequentially misunderstood as being forced open.3 The present essay, paying close attention to the latch and the door fastened by it, begins by outlining how the door fixture functions and how the circumstances surrounding Tarquin's entry into the bedroom are presented in the poem. It then goes on to examine how deeply the material setting of the door is intertwined with the very nature of the central event in the poem-the rape of Lucrece.« (Source: Article)

Contents:

	Introduction (p. 31)
	I. "A Yielding Latch"-the Material Setting(p. 31)
	II. The Door on the Latch and the Ambiguous Nature of the Rape (p. 33)
	Did Lucrece Yield? (p. 34)
	Is Tarquin a Thief or a Burglar? (p. 38)
	Conclusion (p. 43)
	Works Cited (p. 43)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of England / Elizabethan era | Literature: English literature / William Shakespeare | Literature: Rape in fiction / The Rape of Lucrece | Myth: Roman mythology / Lucretia, Sextus Tarquinius | Sex and the law: Rape / History of rape, Mythological rape victims