The Female Grotesque Amid the Carnival of Renaissance Drama

Abstract

Abstract This dissertation discusses the female grotesque within carnivalesque societies as portrayed in some Renaissance drama. The ideal female interacts with the grotesque virago, whore, witch, and scold to deform the milieu producing her and to demonstrate the similarity between the two types. After defining carnival, the grotesque, and the ideal, the study compares each type within comedies and tragedies and reveals that women become transgressors due to patriarchal degradation. To diminish the female's effects, comedy tries to contain her within social expectations, whereas tragedy suggests the impossibility of correcting human behavior and ends in bloodshed. As a result of the female grotesque's actions and her degenerate environment, language reduces to the billingsgate of carnival, as it focuses on the lower bodily stratum. For order to return, society and the female grotesque must undergo the processes of reformation and/or purgation; however, carnival lurks offstage, waiting to return.