ABSTRACT
The Illegitimacy is a surprisingly common theme in literature. The darker side is all about seduction, rape, deception, prostitution, illegitimacy, social isolation, crime, poverty and disease. The bastard as usurper and murderer is an archetype and, as such, appears over and over again in European literature and the literature of the English-speaking world. Illegitimacy is the paradigmatic skeleton in the cupboard, a secret far more shameful than bankruptcy, insanity or any crime. The dark, unhappy side of sexual love is the subject matter of a special kind of humour, namely, ribaldry. Ribaldry is coarse and low but not all pleasantries about sexual matters are necessarily ribald. Many writers, particularly novelists, contrast the good with the bad sides of sexual love - they contrast, that is to say, honour and shame, legitimacy and illegitimacy, poverty and inheritance, marriage and seduction, disease and purity and so on.
