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Literary and Poetic References to Crimes of Passion

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Praefectus Praetorio said:
beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer,
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I tried to read Thomas Hardy when I was a callow youth, I really did, but I couldn't penetrate Tess more than a chapter's worth. Had I understood this expression, I might have continued. I'm not the most perceptive of humans but at least I know what he's talking about now.
Praefectus Praetorio said:
Roll out your rubber
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Or maybe I'm just starting to read to much into things. I mean, sometimes rubber is just rubber, after all.
Praefectus Praetorio said:
But you, because you happen to read about "many thousands of kisses," you think I'm not a man? Fuck you, boys, up the butt and in the mouth!
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I remember one single thing from first year Latin and it is this line by Catullus:

"Da mihi basia mille, deinde centum." "Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred."
 
Fanny Hill (or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland

My breasts, if it is not too bold a figure to call so two hard, firm, rising hillocks, that just began to shew themselves, or signify anything to the touch, employed and amused her hands awhile, till, slipping down lower, over a smooth track, she could just feel the soft silky down that had but a few months before put forth and garnished the mount-pleasant of those parts, and promised to spread a grateful shelter over the sweet seat of the most exquisite sensation, and which had been, till that instant, the seat of the most insensible innocence. Her fingers played and strove to twine in the young tendrils of that moss, which nature has contrived at once for use and ornament.
 
Shakespeare
Titus Andronicus: Act 2, Scene 4

Another part of the forest.

Enter the Empress’ sons (Demetrius and Chiron) with Lavinia, her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravished.

DEMETRIUS
So now go tell, and if thy tongue can speak,
Who ’twas that cut thy tongue and ravish’d thee.

CHIRON
Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,
And if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.

DEMETRIUS
See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.

CHIRON
Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.

DEMETRIUS
She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash,

And so let’s leave her to her silent walks.

CHIRON
And ’twere my cause, I should go hang myself.

DEMETRIUS
If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.

Exeunt Demetrius and Chiron.
 
Praefectus Praetorio said:
Shakespeare
Titus Andronicus: Act 2, Scene 4

Another part of the forest.

Enter the Empress’ sons (Demetrius and Chiron) with Lavinia, her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravished.

DEMETRIUS
So now go tell, and if thy tongue can speak,
Who ’twas that cut thy tongue and ravish’d thee.

CHIRON
Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,
And if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.

DEMETRIUS
See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.

CHIRON
Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.

DEMETRIUS
She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash,

And so let’s leave her to her silent walks.

CHIRON
And ’twere my cause, I should go hang myself.

DEMETRIUS
If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.

Exeunt Demetrius and Chiron.
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I saw Titus Andronicus performed once at Stratford (Ontario) years ago. Very well done. Approximately 98% of the cast (by my estimate) dies in some truly spectacular and creative ways. When it was over, about 98% of the audience was pretty shaken and headed straight for the bar for a pretty stiff drink. :D
 
Next Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. On the surface a love story, it is more a cautionary tale of the dangers of women who have been frustrated in life and/or love, becoming destructive to themselves and others. I don't have a way to paste in extended quotes, so I will summarize some of the sex and violence sections:
Pips's older sister, Mrs. Joe had a terrible life with the death of her parents and brothers and marriage to Joe whom she thought beneath her. From this, Pip describes her as strikingly unattractive and having a terrible temper to beat 7 year old Pip with a cane (with a CF like nickname of "The Tickler." She also beat her husband the blacksmith:
she pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall behind him: while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on. 'Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the matter,' said my sister, out of breath, 'you staring great stuck pig'
Later, Orick 'tames' her by smashing her skull with convict chains.
It is hinted that Mr. Jaggers will beat Estella after they are married.
The strongest scene is Jaggers humiliation of his servant (slave) Molly:
In front of four educated, middle-cJass young men. Jaggers claps his hand on hers 'like a trap' and announces 'I'll show you a wrist.
Molly, let them see your wrist'. She begs him 'Don't' in a 'low voice', entreating, murmuring, 'Master ... please!'. But relentlessly Jaggers displays both wrists 'coolly tracing out the sinews with his forefinger' (p.236). This personal violation, the assault on Molly's feelings and person is intensely sexual, and it is not surprising.when Jaggers suddenly announces that his guests must leave at half past nine. Molly is from the lower, the criminal classes, has 'some gipsy blood,' and a curtain is drawn discreetly over the true nature of her relationship with the unmarried Jaggers: 'he took her in, and ... he kept down the old wild violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking out, by asserting his power over her in the old way' . It is easy to imagine what that 'old way' is.
 
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange. I can't quote the most disturbing scenes here since the victims are under-age. Instead I'll quote what Burgess wrote after seeing the film, which disgusted him and caused him to repudiate his own book.

We all suffer from the popular desire to make the known notorious. The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me until I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation.

How many authors here have similar feelings for their works? Some of mine are certainly jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks. (well, not for money, though I wouldn't mind that)
 
A great poet using his powers to sing the praises of a noble lord, "Signoir Dildo"

John Milmot, Earl of Rochester, described by Anne Temple as "He is nothing but a danger to our Sex."

 
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