ABSTRACT
While there have been a number of works examining Renaissance satire and satiric tragedy, as well as several recent studies on Renaissance attitudes toward sexual conduct and gender, there have not been any thorough examinations of the role of sexually descriptive language in satiric tragedy. This is surprising when one considers how frequently this language is employed on the Renaissance stage, especially in satiric tragedy. Satiric tragedians use sexually descriptive language in various ways and with various motives. These varying motives, however, potentially complicate analysis of how the satiric and the erotic intersect. For example, the amatory hymns of Romeo and Juliet are certainly sexually descriptive language, but so are the general denunciations of Mercutio, or Hamlet’s very specific attacks against his mother and Ophelia. Examining these various modes of representation, this study interrogates the ways in which sexually descriptive language serves satiric aggression, paying particular attention to sexualized slander and mockery, frequently engaged through languages such as titillation, insinuation and obscenity. Throughout, I define such sexually descriptive language as language that describes, either explicitly or implicitly, sexual conduct, its consequences and / or the resulting moral judgments it generates.1
