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Written by a practising poet and novelist who has close experience of the subject matter and has published creative work in the areas being examined, Sexual Violence and Literary Art is a wide-ranging study, covering carefully selected works from Ovid through Shakespeare to Pope, Richardson, Shelley, Hardy, Nabokov and beyond. It addresses the necessary complicity of any representation in what is represented, by examining ways in which canonical male writers have attempted to evoke and address representations of sexual violence in poetry, prose fiction, and poetic drama in light of women’s philosophical, theoretical and critical responses to these works of literary art.
‘This groundbreaking study explores how male perspectives shape narratives of sexual violence, offering intricate ethical insights into patriarchy. With a rich historical range, each chapter provides detailed close readings that reveal the complex ethical and imaginative dynamics behind male representations of violence against women in literature and culture.’ —Adam Piette, University of Sheffield, UK.
‘This book offers a consistently thoughtful critical voice across 40 years of essays. With sensitivity and insight, it provides fresh, nuanced readings – especially of Richardson and Shelley – while demonstrating a rare talent for close analysis and uncovering overlooked biographical details in English and American literary texts.’ —David Pascoe, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Introduction: Experience and Point of View; 2. ‘And Still She Cried’: Two Allusions to Ovid; 3. Talking Yourself to Death: The Rape of Lucrece; 4. Innocence, Sincerity, and Bodies in The Rape of the Lock; 5. Private Violence and Public Meaning: Clarissa; 6. ‘Touched Very Delicately’: Shelley’s The Cenci; 7. ‘A Blank to Me’: Thomas Hardy and the Loss of Meaning; 8. ‘Readings Will Grow Erratic’ in Philip Larkin’s ‘Deceptions’; 9. The Rape of Dolly Haze; or, Rorty on Nabokov; 10. ‘And Still the World Pursues’: Conclusions; Bibliography.