Abstract

This essay argues that Shakespeare's Lucrece builds an identification between the figure of the author and that of the raped woman in order to redefine the relationship between the writer's intentions and the "body" of the text. As Lucrece learns to transform her body into a document or "will" that is able to carry her story and chaste reputation beyond death, the poem dramatizes how writers inscribe their own "wills" or intentions in their works. The poem also enacts this process: as Lucrece's body increasingly expresses her will, the body of the poem Lucrece increasingly appears to register the voice of "Will" Shakespeare, as its formal rhetorical style is transformed into the dramatic language that characterized his plays.

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