Ken Armstrong wrote:
> 
> Tom,
> 
>  Aside from the question of whether Eugenides is a rapist or not or how
> "asked me" becomes an "assault," how is the typist scene a rape? It
> seems to be wholly in the cards, as it were, not at all unexpected by
> either party.

Agreed. (Though for about 30 years now "welcome of indifference" would
be regarded as a rapist's self-justification. But that certainly was not
the case in 1920.)

Another important point. Everything one can usefully say about the poem
on the hypothesis of rape can also be said about it without that
hypothesis. Occam's razor would suggest not taking the rape hypothesis
seriously.

Carrol