Women Under Siege. The Shakespearean Ethics of Violence

This paper discusses notions of physical violence, domestic violence, and sexual assault and the ways in which these were socially and legally perceived in early modern Europe. Special attention will be paid to a number of Shakespearean plays, such as Titus Andronicus and Edward III, but also to the narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece (whose motifs were later adopted in Cymbeline), where the consumption of the female body as a work of art is combined with verbal and physical abuse.