Conceiving Desire

Explores the role of the mind in creating erotic experience on the early modern stage

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.

Gillian Knoll is Assistant Professor of English at Western Kentucky University.