Rape in sixteenth-century "Vies de femmes illustres" treatises

Abstract

This work analyses the theme of rape from a historical perspective by looking at late fifteenth and sixteenth-century records produced in the course and in the wake of the Querelle des Femmes debate. The characteristics associated to rape are studied especially when concerning illustrious women found in the collective catalogues of these authors. Specific attention is devoted to the lexicon used to describe sexual aggression, as well as to the exempla chosen from classical mythology, the Bible or ancient history, as is the case with Lucrecia. Although all of them share the rape element as a decisive aspect of these women’s biographies, thus
subjecting them to well known types, this work tries to detect the nuances in some particular descriptions and narrative options concerning the aggresion. Thus, by pointing out the manipulation of the rape tradition, we regard this textual body as endowed with a much wider
range of meanings and interpretations than it has usually been attributed.