{"product_id":"2026200014941-secondhand-the-rapes-of-lucretia-a-myth-and-its-transformations","title":"The Rapes Of Lucretia: A Myth And Its Transformations","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: Previous owner\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Some stains on interior front pages - not obscuring text. Small chips on spine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew stories have haunted the Western imagination as persistently as the tale of Lucretia — the virtuous Roman noblewoman whose violation by Sextus Tarquinius ignited a revolution, toppled a dynasty, and became one of antiquity's most enduring moral parables. Ian Donaldson's The Rapes of Lucretia: A Myth and its Transformations traces the remarkable journey of this ancient narrative across more than two millennia of literature, art, and political thought, charting how successive ages have reinterpreted, contested, and reimagined its central themes of honour, shame, violence, and female virtue. From Livy and Ovid through Shakespeare's poem, to the operas of Britten and beyond, Donaldson presents a panoramic survey of the myth's extraordinary cultural afterlife, illuminating the ways in which each retelling reveals as much about its own era as it does about Rome.\n\nDonaldson's scholarship is rigorous yet compellingly readable, arguing that the Lucretia myth functions as a kind of cultural mirror — one that reflects shifting attitudes toward gender, political power, and moral responsibility across the centuries. His analysis uncovers the deep tensions embedded within the story: Is Lucretia a tragic heroine or a victim of patriarchal ideology? A symbol of republican virtue or an emblem of female subjugation? Written with elegant precision and wide-ranging erudition, this landmark work of comparative literature raises questions that remain as urgent and unsettling today as they were in ancient Rome.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49203159433435,"sku":"2026200014941-SECONDHAND","price":120.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/4b30b068-7d2e-46bc-8a89-dd92c304cf25.png?v=1788144731","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200014941-secondhand-the-rapes-of-lucretia-a-myth-and-its-transformations","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}