Pulter’s advice for women, “Love Repulst doth more increase desire” (19), is part of the broader features of Renaissance rape culture. Rape culture is a sociological concept originating with second-wave feminism in the 1970s that identifies the normalization of (male) sexual violence and the blame placed on victims of sexual assault. Kay Stanton discusses the pressing connections between contemporary rape culture and our early modern antecedents in Shakespeare/Sex: Contemporary Readings in Gender and Sexuality.1 In many early modern renderings of rape culture, the more a woman resists sexual advances, the more enticing she becomes to her attacker, “As Oyl Thrown on to quench augments the fire” (20). Compare Pulter’s treatment of this sentiment to the following examples:

Note when Daphne appears “most lovely” to Apollo in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Apollo’s inability to catch the elusive Daphne even drives him “mad.” How does this relate to the turtle’s pursuit in Pulter’s poem?

Note how Pulter describes the turtle’s paramour as “wise,” “fair,” and “chaste.” How does this relate to the way Angelo in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (1604) describes Isabella’s “modesty” and “virtue”?

Note how Pulter’s pursued turtle layers love with fear, as one emotion overtakes and then subsumes the other: “Thus Love then fear did prove more Swift in Chase” (13). How does DeFlores in Middleton’s The Changeling (1622) use a similar relationship between love and fear (and the “turtle,” here in reference to a turtledove) to introduce this coercive sexual encounter with Beatrice Joanna?

Note how Pulter’s male turtle requests both “Love, and pitty” (4). How does this relate to the way the Duke in Middleton’s Women Beware Women (c. 1623) discusses pity, affection, and pleasure?

Footnotes