Against their Will: Deconstructing the Myth of the Heroic Rapist in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and Machiavelli’s La Mandragola

by Scott Nelson

There are no words that encapsulate the idea of the heroic rapist better than the ones used by Susan Brownmiller in her book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. She writes: “As man conquers the world, so too he conquers the female.” Throughout history no theme rules the masculine imagination more often and with less honor than the myth of the heroic rapist.