Narratives About Raped and Abducted Women in the Bible as a Source for Research on Raptus Puellae in Polish Literature from the 16th to 18th Centuries
Narratives About Raped and Abducted Women in the Bible as a Source for Research on Raptus Puellae in Polish Literature from the 16th to 18th Centuries

Summary/Abstract: Rape is a phenomenon present in many discourses: legal, social, psychological, religious, and artistic. We can also observe it from a philological perspective. It is also a theme deeply rooted in culture, dating back to classical and biblical traditions. Representations of rape and abduction in the Bible and Greek and Roman literature become a literary-cultural background for research on raptus puellae theme in European literature of the Early Modern Age. Researching Polish literature from the 16th to 18th century, the paper focuses on the Polish translations of the Bible from the 16th to 17th century (Leopolita, Brzeska, Jakub Wujek, Gdańska). The analysis raises questions as to whether and how the narratives of rape or abduction have changed in individual translations of the Bible, how abduction and rape are presented in these narratives, and whether it has any connection with later representations of this theme in Old Polish literature. We can also see how the descriptions of individual rape cases in the Bible are influenced by the “meeting” of the concept of rape, language, and literary conventions.

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