Ravishing the bride from the classical page to the early modern stage: Thomas Heywood’s The Rape of Lucrece

Abstract

This article explores what Colin Burrow terms the “intimacy of violation”, focusing on the “adulterate bed” – a phrase used both by the rapist and his victim – in Thomas Heywood’s The Rape of Lucrece, which was first staged at the Red Bull Theatre in 1607 or 1608. While the term “adulterate” implies voluntary, extramarital intercourse, both adultery and rape imply illicit sex, with a polluting effect on the woman and, more widely, her family, in particular her husband. Here, the bed is the locus of rape. It collapses the violation of the bride’s body, of the marriage and of the domestic space associated with the marital bond, which is exposed to the voyeurism of witnesses – the spectators – even as, in a moment of cruel dramatic irony that echoes Shakespeare’s poem, Sextus tells Lucrece that she has nothing to fear since what happened shall remain a secret. Heywood reworks Livy and Ovid in a multi-directional process that incorporates references to Shakespeare as he adapts the story to the stage in a bold generic move that owes as much to his competence as a Latinist as to his awareness of his contemporaries’ works and his own craftsmanship as a dramatist.