Author: Caitlin G. Watt, Department of English, Indiana University Bloomington - Personal Website, Academia.edu

Abstract: »Also tracking the way rewritten narratives transform rape into consensual sex (and vice-versa), Caitlin G. Watt in Chapter 14, ‘“Thy Womb Will Avenge Thee”: Olympias, Revenge, and Consent in Medieval Alexander the Great Narratives’, explores how the infidelity of Alexander the Great’s mother, Olympias, is complicated or exonerated depending on whether or not her sexual encounter with the Egyptian sorcerer-king Nectanabus is consensual. Untangling representations of deceptive sex or rape across four texts — the Latin Epitome of Julius Valerius’s Res Gestae Alexandri Macedonis, Leo the Archpriest’s Historia de Preliis Alexandri Magnis, Thomas de Kent’s Roman de toute chevalerie, and John Gower’s Confessio Amantis — Watt explores the impact of Olympias’s consent or coercion on the characterisation of Alexander. Here, as in the other contributions to this section, readers — both medieval and modern — are implicated in the representation of violence and violation, pointing to how the stories we tell and re-tell about rape and sexual coercion can convey and challenge sexual ethics.« (Source: Bonsall, Jane, and Hannah Piercy. »Introduction: Why Reconsider Medieval Consent and Coercion? Why Now?« Reconsidering Consent and Coercion: Power, Vulnerability, and Sexual Violence in Medieval Literature. Edited by Jane Bonsall et al. Turnhout 2025: 33-34)

Contents:

	Latin Alexander Texts: The Epitome and the Historia de Preliis (p. 275)
	Le Roman de toute chevalerie (p. 279)
	Confessio Amantis (p. 282)
	Conclusion (p. 287)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of England | England in the Late Middle Ages | Literature: English literature / John Gower | Confessio Amantis, Thomas de Kent | Sex and the law: Rape / History of rape