Erotic beasts and social monsters
Subtitle: Shakespeare, Jonson, and comic androgyny
By: Grace Tiffany.
Publisher: University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Newark; London; Cranbury, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 237
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Knowledge -- Psychology.; Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637 -- Knowledge -- Psychology.; Androgyny (Psychology) in literature.; English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism.; English drama -- 17th century -- History and criticism.; Theater -- England -- London -- History -- 17th century.; Sex (Psychology) in literature.; Hermaphroditism in literature.; Drama -- Psychological aspects.; Comic, The, in literature.
Description: The voluminous contemporary critical work on English Renaissance androgyny and transvestism debates has not fully uncovered the ancient Greek and Roman roots of the gender controversy. Erotic Beasts and Social Monsters argues that the variant Renaissance views on the androgyne's symbolism are, in fact, best understood with reference to classical representations of the double-sexed or gender-baffled figure, and with the classical merging of that figure with images of beasts and monsters.

Grace Tiffany's discussion of ancient beast-androgynes draws on satire as well as myth, citing Archilochus alongside Homer, Aristophanes with Euripides, and Juvenal next to Ovid and Apuleius. She thus illuminates a gender dispute as old as Western culture itself.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 224-232) and index.