Conceiving Desire in Lyly and Shakespeare: Metaphor, Cognition and Eros

by Gillian Knoll

Overview

Explores the role of the mind in creating erotic experience on the early modern stage
Advances a new critical methodology that credits the role of cognition in the experience of erotic desire, and pleasure itselfExplores the philosophical underpinnings of erotic metaphors, drawing from ancient, early modern, and contemporary thinkers such as Aristotle, Giordano Bruno, Gaston Bachelard, Emmanuel Levinas, Kenneth Burke, George Lakoff, and Mark TurnerIlluminates the dramatic vitality of philosophical and contemplative erotic speechProvides the first full-length study that pairs John Lyly’s and William Shakespeare’s drama, uncovering new forms of intimacy in their plays
To ‘conceive’ desire is to acknowledge the generative potential of the erotic imagination, its capacity to impart form and make meaning out of the most elusive experiences. Drawing from cognitive theories about the metaphorical nature of thought, Gillian Knoll traces the contours of three conceptual metaphors – motion, space and creativity – that shape desire in plays by John Lyly and William Shakespeare. Metaphors, she argues, do more than narrate or express eros; they constitute erotic experience for Lyly’s and Shakespeare’s characters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474428538
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	12/14/2021
Series:	Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Gillian Knoll is Assistant Professor in English at Western Kentucky University. Her publications include “‘Binding the Void’: The Erotics of Place in Antony and Cleopatra.” Criticism 58.2 (Forthcoming, 2017) and “How to Make Love to the Moon: Intimacy and Erotic Distance in John Lyly’s Endymion.” Shakespeare Quarterly 65.2 (2014): 164-79.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Series Editor’s Preface Introduction

Part I. Motion

Introduction. The Physics and Metaphysics of Metaphor Chapter 1. The Erotic Potential of Idleness in Lyly’s Drama Chapter 2. The ‘Raging Motions’ of Eros on Shakespeare’s Stage

Part II. Space

Introduction. ‘In love.’ Chapter 3. ‘A petty world of myself’: Intimacy and Erotic Distance in Endymion Chapter 4. Binding the void: The Erotics of Place in Antony and Cleopatra

Part III. Creativity

Introduction. Erotic Subject, Object, Instrument Chapter 5. Love’s Use in Campaspe Chapter 6. ‘You lie, in faith’: Making Marriage in The Taming of the Shrew

Conclusion. Metaphorical Constraints: Making ‘frenzy… fine’Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Folger Shakespeare Library Gail Kern Paster

The first book to pair Shakespeare and Lyly, Gillian Knoll’s Conceiving Desire in Lyly and Shakespeare is a brilliant, wide-ranging application of cognitive and conceptual metaphor theory to show how cognition and eros come together – thrillingly, threateningly, creatively – in the experience of dramatic characters such as Lyly’s Endymion and Campaspe, or Shakespeare’s Othello, Kate and Petruchio, and Antony and Cleopatra. Using three domain metaphors of motion, space and creativity, and the insights of philosophers from Aristotle to Mark Lakoff and Gaston Bachelard, Knoll explores the capacity of erotic experience to "make love" for the cognitively aware selves caught in its toils. Reading Knoll is to find oneself in the presence of genuinely new interpretations not only of little-known plays like Lyly’s Endymion but also Shakespeare’s best-known comedies and tragedies. I will not soon forget Knoll’s dazzling exposition of Endymion’s undying love for the immensity of the moon.

Editorial Reviews

One of the joys of this book is that its readings are seemingly indefatigable.

Modern Philology - Joseph Gamble

The first book to pair Shakespeare and Lyly, Gillian Knoll’s Conceiving Desire in Lyly and Shakespeare is a brilliant, wide-ranging application of cognitive and conceptual metaphor theory to show how cognition and eros come together – thrillingly, threateningly, creatively – in the experience of dramatic characters such as Lyly’s Endymion and Campaspe, or Shakespeare’s Othello, Kate and Petruchio, and Antony and Cleopatra. Using three domain metaphors of motion, space and creativity, and the insights of philosophers from Aristotle to Mark Lakoff and Gaston Bachelard, Knoll explores the capacity of erotic experience to "make love" for the cognitively aware selves caught in its toils. Reading Knoll is to find oneself in the presence of genuinely new interpretations not only of little-known plays like Lyly’s Endymion but also Shakespeare’s best-known comedies and tragedies. I will not soon forget Knoll’s dazzling exposition of Endymion’s undying love for the immensity of the moon.

Folger Shakespeare Library Gail Kern Paster