Revealing the intimacy of procreation in Golden Age medical discourse: rhetorical strategies

Abstract

Revealing the secrets of procreation, exposing its instruments and mechanisms while respecting the boundaries of propriety, was one of the objectives of the medical discourse of the Spanish Golden Age. This discourse was deeply infused with morality: representing intimacy was done with modesty. How to convey knowledge about certain parts of the body and natural functions that were meant to be concealed? How would one decently speak without compromising the primary educational function of scientific disclosure discourse? The aim of this article is to account for the rhetorical strategies used by physicians to succeed in their endeavor of exposing the mysteries of procreation and its failures. We will observe that studying the author’s positioning reveals ways of thinking about the intimacy of procreation. Analyzing the rhetorical strategies of evasion, mitigation, legitimization of discourse will also help us understand how the discourse managed to avoid falling into impudence. Lastly, we will note that speaking metaphorically was a way to unveil intimacy. Lexical techniques such as the use of tropes, beyond their explanatory and descriptive function, allowed authors to soften realities deemed unpleasant.