Themes in Rape of Lucrece

• Rationatio/Exclamatio • Monosyllabic words • Sonic elements- fricative phonemes- harsh sounds ‘r…b…d’ • Monosyllabic words for simplicity’s sake • ABABBCC- Rhyme Royal (Chacuerian)- used previously by Chaucer’s James I of Scotland. Form is also used in ‘A Lover’s Complaint’—whereby the young female speaker has been pursued, seduced and abandoned (feature of prolepsis, foreshadowing Lucrece’s plight of abandonment) It is a conversational tone. • Iambic Pentameter- mimicking the heart beat, creating tension • Tricolon Crescendo-‘tears, sighs, groans’ to heighten his guilt and avert his attention. • compound words- fusing of words-wreck-threatening, death-worthy, heaved-up • Anaphora of thou- this highly repetitive nature mimetically imitates her troubled, disturbed psyche. • Lucrece attempts at commanding and warning him, like Tarquin using cold aphorisms, and changing him from the high position of named king into an unidentified woodsman. Lucrece reminds Tarquin of the ineffaceable nature of his actions. Praeexpositio is used as Lucrece compares what Tarquin should have done, and what he did. Lucrece tells a story, representing it in a request of warning and imperatives amid tears.

• Nature and Lucrece are on par- her sighs are likened to whirlwinds • Her moans/groans/tears conjure images of the rain—it is further emphasised by her plethora of O’s throughout the poem as a whole. Her cries of ‘O’s could be likened to ciphers (zeros), thus Zephyrus. (God of Wind) The O’s are important as the poem is mainly concerned with observing. It is the regal description of Lucrece that Collatine narrates, which arouses lust into Tarquin’s heart that he must see her, and upon seeing her, many references are made to the eyes. The eyes are circular, the cries of O’s are circular, and the O’s imitate the pudenda. • Water is traditionally associated with women as it is theorised that life came from water (new life comes from women). Women have been tied to water such as the Goddess Aphrodite who was born of the sea foam. This explains the colour ‘blue’ imagery connotative of Lucrece. • She is also referenced as the ‘troubled ocean’—the ocean is predominantly a sign of power and strength. The ocean is unpredictable, mysterious, and uncontrollable. The ocean is referred to as being the a tear of God or the sorrow. • The water imagery subsequently grows- ‘melt at my tears’, to become malleable like water- 'put on his shape' • Tarquin as rocky/stone-hearted • ‘Mist from eyes’- weather, climatic imagery is continued- Tarquin is the mist that covers the skies of the empire (Lucrece), as she releases gusts of sighs (wind)