Listed in: Women’s Studies · Literature · British Literature · Gender Studies
Pompilia
A Feminist Reading of Robert Browning’s The Ring and The Book
By Ann P. Brady
When Count Guido Franceschini was tried by a Roman court in 1698 for the rape and murder of his young wife Pompilia, he had the church, the state, and “all of sensible Rome” supporting him. Their cynical mandate sprang from the traditional belief that in a patriarchal society the male should wield absolute power, including the power of life and death, over the female.
