Baldwin, T. W. "The Literary Genetics of 'Lucrece'." In On the Literary Genetics of Shakespere's Poems and Sonnets, pp. 97-153. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1950.

Offers a detailed study of the classical and contemporary sources that Shakespeare likely relied on in composing The Rape of Lucrece.

Bromley, Laura G. "Lucrece's Re-Creation," in Shakespeare Quarterly 34, No. 2 (Summer 1983): 200-11.

Interprets the character of Lucrece as an heroic figure, one who undergoes moral struggle and transformation, emerging as a fully integrated self.

Carter, Stephen J. "Lucrece's Gaze." Shakespeare Studies XXffl (1995): 210-21.

Examines Lucrece's actions and motivations in terms of gender-specific social and linguistic conditioning.

Crewe, Jonathan. "Shakespeare's Figure of Lucrece: Writing Rape." In Trials of Authorship: Anterior Forms and Poetic Reconstruction from Wyatt to Shakespeare, pp. 140-63. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

Employs feminist and deconstructive theory to explore masculine violence in The Rape of Lucrece.

Dickey, Franklin M. "Attitudes toward Love in Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece." In Not Wisely But Too Well: Shakespeare's Love Tragedies, pp. 46-62. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1957.

Contrasts The Rape of Lucrece with Venus and Adonis, claiming that the former is an exemplum that explores the debilitating effects of lust.

Fineman, Joel. "Shakespeare's Will: The Temporality of Rape." Representations 20 (Fall 1987): 25-76.

In-depth poststructural analysis of The Rape of Lucrece that concentrates on indications of "the idiosyncratic Shakespeare" that appear in his constructions of character.

Hamilton, A. C. "The Poems: 'Lucrece'." In The Early Shakespeare, pp. 167-85. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1967.

Asserts that Shakespeare's poem, relative to prior accounts, represents "the first time the story of Lucrece is told comprehensively in all its complexity."

Heffernan, James A. W. "Weaving Rape: Ekphrastic Metamorphoses of the Philomela Myth from Ovid to Shakespeare." In Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbury, pp. 46-90. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Examines the topic of violence toward women as portrayed in the contexts of ekphrasis—the literary representation of visual art.

Lever, J. W. Introduction to The Rape of Lucrece, by William Shakespeare, Penguin Books, 1971, pp. 7-28.

Discusses the critical history, themes, imagery, and place in Shakespeare's canon of The Rape of Lucrece.

Newman, Jane O. '"And Let Mild Women to Him Lose Their Mildness': Philomela, Female Violence, and Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece" Shakespeare Quarterly 45, No. 3 (Fall 1994): 304-26.

Suggests that the presence of Philomela, who "represents the countertradition of vengeful and violent women" in literature, lurks in the margins of Shakespeare's poem.

Patterson, Annabel. "Sleeping with the Enemy—The Rape of Lucrece" In Reading Between the Lines, pp. 297-312. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.

Highlights political and ideological undercurrents in The Rape of Lucrece, arguing that the subjects of gender and law have often been obscured by critics of the poem.

Vickers, Nancy J. "This Heraldry in Lucrece' Face." In The Female Body in Western Culture: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Susan Rubin Suleiman, pp. 209-22. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Discusses the violent implications of the military and chivalric metaphors used to describe the protagonists of The Rape of Lucrece.