Cover not available

In:Dimensions of Iconicity
Edited by Angelika Zirker, Matthias Bauer, Olga Fischer and Christina Ljungberg
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 15] 2017
► pp. 287–300

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Performative iconicity

Chiasmus and parallelism in William Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece

 | Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Published online: 8 September 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.15.16zir
From the beginning of Shakespeare’s dramatic long poem The Rape of Lucrece, Tarquin and Lucrece are presented as antagonists: lust-breathed Tarquin (3) vs. chaste Lucrece (7). This opposition also connects them with one another, and the key to their relationship lies in a statement that is uttered late in the poem, when Lucrece is looking at the Troy painting and says: “These contraries such unity do hold” (1558). The characterisation of both Tarquin and Lucrece on the level of content is mirrored on the level of language. For example, when Tarquin in the second line of the epyllion is described to be “borne by the trustless wings of false desire”, the apparent parallelism (adjective followed by a noun) in fact contains an antagonistic structure. Throughout the poem, the inner debate that characterises him before the rape of Lucrece is presented in terms of self-division on the level of content; linguistically, this is rendered by means of chiasmus. In the following, I will show that the relations of synonymy and parallelism as well as of chiasmus and oxymoron can be found throughout the poem, and that they are part of the larger setup of the text in that they imitate the content iconically, i.e. form and meaning correspond to each other. They also become performative as the language enacts the content. Parallelism and chiasmus are part of the semiotic setup and of the dramatic structure of the poem, and they go beyond mere poetic form and content (in the sense of action) as they are also part of the complex technique of character representation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Performative iconicity
  • 2.Parallelism, chiasmus, and multiple perspective
    • 2.1Tarquin’s “trustless wings of false desire”: The opening of the poem
    • 2.2“doth Tarquin lie revolving / The sundry dangers of his will’s obtaining”: Chiasmus and apo koinou
    • 2.3“O modest wantons, wanton modesty”: Chiasmus and the reconciliation of contrast
  • 3.The iconic performance of contrast in unity
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (35)
References
Cheney, D. 1982. Tarquin, Juliet, and other Romei . Spenser Studies 3: 111–124.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cooper, T. 1969[1565]. Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae. Menston: The Scholar Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davis, W. L. 2003. Better a witty fool than a foolish wit: The art of Shakespeare’s chiasmus. Text and Performance Quarterly 23(4): 311–330. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. Structural secrets: Shakespeare’s complex chiasmus. Style 39(3): 237–258.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckstein, L. 2010. Reading Song Lyrics. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elleström, L. 2015. Visual, auditory, and cognitive iconicity in written literature: The example of Emily Dickinson’s ‘Because I could not stop for Death.’ In Iconicity: East Meets West [Iconicity in Language and Literature 5], M. K. Hiraga, W. J. Herlofsky, K. Shinohara & K. Akita (eds), 207–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Engel, W. E. 2009. Chiastic Designs in English Literature from Sidney to Shakespeare. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferber, M. 2007. A Dictionary of Literary Symbols. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer-Lichte, E. 2008. The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fowler, A. 1970. Triumphal Forms: Structural Patterns in Elizabethan Poetry. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horvei, H. 1981. Der Chiasmus: Ein Beitrag zur Figurenlehre mit spezieller Berücksichtigung einiger Werke der deutschen Klassik. Bergen: Private print.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1984. “The Chevril Glove”: A Study in Shakespearean Rhetoric. Bergen: Private print.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krämer, S. 2002. Sprache – Stimme – Schrift: Sieben Gedanken über Performativität als Medialität. In Performanz: Zwischen Sprachphilosophie und Kulturwissenschaften, U. Wirth (ed.), 323–346. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ljungberg, C. 2010. The bell jar, the maze and the mural: Diagrammatic figurations as textual performance. In Signergy [Iconicity in Language and Literature 9], C. J. Conradie, R. Johl, M. Beukes, O. Fisher & C. Ljungberg (eds), 47–72. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maassen, I. 2001. Text und/als/in der Performanz in der frühen Neuzeit: Thesen und Überlegungen. Paragrana 10(1): 285–302.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Müller, W. G. 2000. Iconicity and rhetoric: A note on the iconic force of rhetorical figures in Shakespeare. In The Motivated Sign [Iconicity in Language and Literature 2], O. Fischer & M. Nänny (eds), 305–322. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nänny, M. 1987. Chiastic structures in literature: Some forms and functions. In The Structure of Texts, U. Fries (ed.), 75–97. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. Alphabetic letters as icons in literary texts. In Form Miming Meaning [Iconicity in Language and Literature 1], M. Nänny & O. Fischer (eds), 173–198. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nöth, W. 2001. Semiotic foundations of iconicity in language and literature. In The Motivated Sign [Iconicity in Language and Literature 2], O. Fischer & M. Nänny (eds), 17–28. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norrman, R. 1986. Samuel Butler and the Meaning of Chiasmus. New York NY: Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. Creating the world in our image: A new theory of love of symmetry and iconicist desire. In Form Miming Meaning [Iconicity in Language and Literature 1], M. Nänny & O. Fischer (eds), 59–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn. 2014. 〈[URL]〉 (11 December 2016).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paul, A. 1992. The Torture of the Mind: Macbeth, Tragedy and Chiasmus. PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paul, A. & Wiseman, B. 2014. Introduction: Chiasmus in the drama of life. In Chiasmus and Culture , B. Wiseman & A. Paul (eds), 1–16. New York NY: Berghahn.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramirez, M. 2011. Descanting on deformity: The irregularities in Shakespeare’s large chiasms. Text and Performance Quarterly 31(1): 37–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rogers, T. 1592. Soliloquium Animae: The Sole-Talke of the Soule. London: The Fourth Booke of the Imitation of Christ.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shakespeare, W. 1998. Troilus and Cressida [The Arden Shakespeare], D. Bevington (ed.). Walton-on-Thames: Nelson House. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003[1997]. The Sonnets [The Arden Shakespeare], K. Duncan-Jones (ed). London: Thomson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007a. The Rape of Lucrece. In Shakespeare’s Poems [The Arden Shakespeare], K. Duncan-Jones & H. R. Woudhuysen (eds), 231–383. London: Cengage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007b. The Phoenix and Turtle. In Shakespeare’s Poems [The Arden Shakespeare], K. Duncan-Jones & H. R. Woudhuysen (eds), 421–428. London: Cengage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Timon of Athens [The Arden Shakespeare], A. B. Dawson & G. E. Minton (eds). London: Cengage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Strecker, I. 2014. Chiasmus and metaphor. In Chiasmus and Culture, A. Paul & B. Wiseman (eds), 69–88. New York NY: Berghahn.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woolf, R. 1968. The English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zirker, A. 2015. Stages of the Soul in Early Modern Poetry: William Shakespeare and John Donne. Habilitation: University of Tübingen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. ‘Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke’: Aspects of drama and performance in John Donne’s Holy Sonnet ‘Oh my black Soule.’ ZAA 64(3): 247–262.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Jorge Eduardo Urueña López, Jamin Pelkey & L’udmila Lacková Bennett
2025. Semiosis as creation between nature, body, and art, DOI logo
Huth, Kimberly
2024. “This Forcèd League”: The Compassionate Body in The Rape of Lucrece. Renaissance and Reformation 47:1 ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo
Tartakovsky, Roi & Yeshayahu Shen
2023. The Storm Sank My Boat and My Dreams: The Zeugma as a Breach of Iconicity. Metaphor and Symbol 38:2 ► pp. 162 ff. DOI logo
Pelkey, Jamin
2022. Tonal iconicity and narrative transformation. In Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems [Iconicity in Language and Literature, 18], ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
Lugea, Jane
2018. The year’s work in stylistics 2017. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 27:4 ► pp. 329 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue