Men & Sex

Veronese, Venus and Adonis

Blazon: the itemization and elevation of women's body parts in sequence.


Venus uses the blazon to describe all her beautiful body parts (Lines 140-144) as an argument for Adonis to have sex with her in Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis". 


Bawdy: Discussing/dealing with sexual matters in a comical way


Shakespeare uses bawdy language in "Venus and Adonis" when ventriloquizing Venus' desires to have Adonis "graze on [her] lips" and other body (bawdy) parts (Lines 233-234).


Trope: devices for intensifying descriptions, such as metaphors, similes, puns, and conceits

William Shakespeare

John Donne employs the dominant trope of comparing a woman to the world or "all states" to convey the message that the beloved is everything in "The Sun Rising".

Hyperbole: exaggeration for effect or emphasis


In Sonnet 129 of Shakespeare's sonnets, Shakespeare uses hyperbole in his description of having sex with women in an act of lust to emphasize the extreme evil lust possesses.