Understanding the Literature of World War II: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents Book

Donaldson takes the Roman story of the rape of Lucretia as told by Livy in book 1 of his History of Rome and follows its transformations.

Starting with the rape and suicide of Lucretia, he examines some of the visual representations in Renaissance art, and then goes on to explore the problematisation of Lucretia's act in Augustine whose Christianity takes a different view of suicide.

The second half of the book turns the myth on its head by following Brutus and the political half of the myth, tracking the way he also moves from heroic centre to something far more ambiguous.

Overall this is an interesting book but I found it slightly unsatisfying in the way it splits the myth into half: chaste, raped Lucretia and then heroic, Republican Brutus. I think Livy's archetypical telling links the two so that they are inextricably intertwined and so to divide them is to lessen the power of the story.

However I particularly found the discussions of Lucretia in art enlightening, and the perfect foundation for a more detailed assessment.

So an important book, but in some ways a light-weight one. Well worth reading, but it does need some follow-up.