DescriptionRape myths have almost always had a place in literature. Yet, Gothic/Romantic works depicted new and shocking images of the female rape victim, with a particular emphasis on pain. Works like Matthew Lewis’ The Monk and Percy Shelley’s The Cenci break the stereotypical myths written about rape victims in works like Henry Fielding’s Rape upon Rape and Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa. The transition from 18th century literature into Gothic/Romantic literature marked an evolution in sensibility, which led the reader to feel a stronger sense of sympathy for women and the rape victim by focusing on pain. Works that represented rape as humorous or harmless may have been provoked by socioeconomic changes, while works that showed the myths about rape to be fallacious advanced those same socioeconomic changes.