Chaucer’s Lucretia and What Augustine Really Said about Rape: Two Reconsiderations.

Author / Editor
Bugbee, John.

Title
Chaucer’s Lucretia and What Augustine Really Said about Rape: Two Reconsiderations.

Published
Traditio 26 (2019): 77-89.

Description
Attributes Chaucer's assertion of St. Augustine's "gret compassioun" for Lucrece as a rape victim (LGW, 1691) to the poets' unmediated first-hand knowledge of Book I of the "City of God," clarifying Augustine's sympathy for rape victims, arguing that critics have misread the theologian, and exploring other evidence of Chaucer's familiarity with Book I elsewhere in the legend, especially Lucrece's swoon.

Chaucer Subjects
Legend of Good Women
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations