Speaker: Ann A. Huse John, Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Abstract: »Recently biographers of Andrew Marvell have investigated the possibility that Andrew Marvell was a survivor of childhood sexual trauma. Reading the cormorant in “The Unfortunate Lover” as a sexually rapacious authority figure, Steven Zwicker and Derek Hirst have suggested the involvement of a schoolmaster notorious for his overzealous discipline. Nicholas von Maltzahn has discovered in a bench book some evidence of the dangers the boy was exposed to when his father supervised indigent old men and women at Hull’s Charterhouse: in 1628, a “poor blind man of this Towne” was expelled from the almshouse “for his evil carriage and misdemeanors.” This talk builds on their work by interpreting “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn” as a tacit representation of the targeting of a young victim as well as of her recovery from two violations of her bodily autonomy. The nymph is left vulnerable to marauders when Sylvio jilts her after seducing her with his lazy puns and canny gift. The generic “troopers” then kill the girl’s deer as an implicit threat to its owner, their senseless violence signaling a possible escalation from pillaging to rape.« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of England | Literature: English literature / Andrew Marvell | Sex and the law: Rape / History of rape