ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the Renaissance fashion for railing as an expression of perversion in its many senses: not only that of 'depravity' but also its Latin meaning of 'reversal of the normal order of words in a sentence', along with its early modern meaning of 'turning aside from the correct meaning or intent of a text'. It focuses on the constant slippage from moral discourse to rhetorical figures of perversion and surveys the rhetoric, culture, and influence of texts that are dominated by railing. The majority of railing texts can be located within five major articulations of railing texts, articulations which constitute a kind of checklist of late Elizabethan/early Jacobean topics of anxiety and controversy, particularly as the subject matter of railing texts corresponds to many of the major ethical debates of the period.
