This is my poster presentation for my 2013 McNair project over Shakespeare's sexual imagery.

1. Bawdy Language in the Bard’s Body:
A Study of Shakespeare’s Sexual Imagery
By Matthew Hall
Abstract
Over the course of his career in the late
16th and early 17th century William
Shakespeare wrote many plays and
poems. In these works he often used
bawdy language to full effect, which is
one of the many reasons he became so
popular with crowds. Shakespeare did
not limit himself to one type of
interaction to employ such language: he
uses virgins and prostitutes, soldiers and
lovers, heteronormative and
homosexual people, and heroes and
villains to convey a type of humor. In
these interactions, he addresses
subjects or anxieties that audiences at
the time could have certainly related to,
e.g., marriage, virginity, cuckoldry, sex,
and even death. All of these interactions
have a common underlying factor:
bawdy humor, which kept audiences
entertained and coming back for a
repeat performance. Because most
people in attendance were uneducated,
Shakespeare had many obvious surface
jokes; Shakespeare also had to cater to a
more refined and educated taste, and
he does so by layering jokes within jokes
that the nobility would have
appreciated. Due to this layering, many
instances of bawdy humor may be lost
to modern audiences – much as it was
lost to the groundlings of Shakespeare’s
time. This essay explores and discusses
these layered and surface jokes in the
different interactions, and it explains
why Shakespeare included the amount
that he did.
Conclusions
Shakespeare’s plays show that women,
men, laborers, royalty, nobility,
heteronormative, and homosexual are all
included within the scope of the artist’s
vision. We are all human, and Shakespeare
knew this. It did not matter your profession
or social status; if you were in attendance
at a play by Shakespeare, you most likely
saw a person analogous to yourself in the
play, and you saw that person treated fairly.
It was Shakespeare’s use of bawdy humor
that insured such fairness in his writings.
Characters in the plays, from every social
stratum, whether healthy or in the midst of
death throes, make bawdy jokes and off-
color remarks; it is a common denominator
that makes a lowly carpenter or weaver
equal to any king or queen.
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Bawdy Language in the Bard’s Body:
A Study of Shakespeare’s Use of Sexual Imagery
Shakespeare’s Notable Bawdy Puns
“Nunnery” in Hamlet puns on convent
and brothel.
“Purse” in Othello references a coin
purse and a scrotum
The players’ names and professions in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream reference
male and female genitalia, genital
descriptions, and sexual intercourse.
Much Ado About Nothing’s title even is
a pun on the “nothing” that a character
did wrong and on female genitalia.
Shakespeare’s Audience
Accustomed to bearbaiting, public
executions, and cockfights.
Would become restless during the
course of a play.
Would throw anything they could find
(benches, tiles, stones, apples, oranges,
and any worker’s tools) to stop the play
or to make the troupe start a different
one.
Four distinct classes went to plays: the
nobles and gentlemen were the highest
class; next were the citizens and
burgesses; after them came the
yeoman, or rural landholders; and
finally, the artisans and laborers.
Acknowledgments
Mary Bennet and Joy Estepp
Dr. Sharon Hileman
Male/Female Bawdy Exchange
PETRUCCIO. … Come, sit on me.
KATHERINE. Asses are made to bear, and so are you.
PETRUCCIO. Women are made to bear, and so are you.
KATHERINE. No such jade as you, if me you mean.
PETRUCCIO. Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee.
……………………………………………………………….
PETRUCCIO. Come, come, you wasp, i' faith, you are too angry.
KATHERINE. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
PETRUCCIO. My remedy is then to pluck it out.
KATHERINE. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
PETRUCCIO. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.
KATHERINE. In his tongue.
PETRUCCIO. Whose tongue?
KATHERINE. Yours, if you talk of tales, and so farewell.
PETRUCCIO. What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come
again,
Good Kate, I am a gentleman.
…………………………………………………………….
KATHERINE. ...If you strike me, you are no gentleman,
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.
PETRUCCIO. A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!
KATHERINE. What is your crest --- a coxcomb?
PETRUCCIO. A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.