Reviews for Rape of Lucrece

The average rating for Rape of Lucrece based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-07-18 00:00:00 E. Suzanne Rowland It's Shakespeare. I don't need to rave on about why this is excellent, but I'll settle for a little summary. In this poem, what is most important (and given the most of Shakespeare's words) is the reaction to the rape. The sorrow that is felt, the guilt, the anger, the despair. The lines themselves are so beautifully crafted; you feel that you could linger on them for half an hour each (which would, at 1906 lines, take you 953 hours, but 953 hours well spent!). The reason that I'm giving this four stars instead of five, was in the failure of Shakespeare to keep up the humanity in the other characters. When Lucrece stabs herself, this is the reaction: Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed, Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew Not one goes to stop her; they just stand and watch her die, which given the length of time it must take for a stab wound to kill someone, is ridiculous, and inconsistent with Shakespeare's idea that love takes sacrifice as easily as a mouth takes water.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-04-14 00:00:00 John Kerr Am I the only reader who disliked this self-absorbed, melodramatic swamp of a narrative? Didn't hold my interest one bit. However, it did test my patience considerably. Somehow I didn't jump off a bridge by the 12th stanza. With such a marketable title, why didn't he make this into a play? .