The dribbling dart of love : sexual language in Measure for Measure and its Swedish translation

The aim of this essay was to elucidate some of William Shakespeare’s sexual language in Measure for Measure and its Swedish translation. A comparison between the two texts was made, focusing on pregnancy, prostitution and sexual actions. The study intended to clarify how attitudes are reflected through sexual language, and whether there is a connection between use of sexual language and social class. It also concerned change of style in translation and semantics. The analysis showed that the sexual language is varied and creative in both texts. Negative attitudes are frequently revealed through sexual language, but there is not necessarily a connection to social class: characters of higher social classes are not always linguistically more delicate. Generally, the translator has maintained the style and the semantic features of the sexual references. Although the latter were found to vary, a great number of them had the emphasising of negative aspects in common.Validerat; 20101217 (root