A provocative essay collection that theorizes the Renaissance through the lens of kink.The Kinky Renaissance is a groundbreaking collection of essays that explore kink as a theoretical analytic, a historical formation, and an aesthetic mode. The essays in this work expand the sexual archive and its lexicon by introducing new vocabularies to familiar sexual scenes in early modern literature and culture and by bringing lesser-known scenes to bear on the study of sexuality in the period. Providing a capacious theory of sexuality and historical precedents for contemporary kinky practices, The Kinky Renaissance explores the erotic potential of early modern literature and pauses over various kinks nestled between and beside them. The collection boldly argues for a broader concept of a kinky Renaissance—one which reorients the terms of both the history of sexuality and queer theory more broadly.

A provocative essay collection that theorizes the Renaissance through the lens of kink.The Kinky Renaissance is a groundbreaking collection of essays that explore kink as a theoretical analytic, a historical formation, and an aesthetic mode. The essays in this work expand the sexual archive and its lexicon by introducing new vocabularies to familiar sexual scenes in early modern literature and culture and by bringing lesser-known scenes to bear on the study of sexuality in the period. Providing a capacious theory of sexuality and historical precedents for contemporary kinky practices, The Kinky Renaissance explores the erotic potential of early modern literature and pauses over various kinks nestled between and beside them. The collection boldly argues for a broader concept of a kinky Renaissance—one which reorients the terms of both the history of sexuality and queer theory more broadly.

Explores the role of the mind in creating erotic experience on the early modern stageAdvances 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 playsTo ‘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.

A provocative essay collection that theorizes the Renaissance through the lens of kink.The Kinky Renaissance is a groundbreaking collection of essays that explore kink as a theoretical analytic, a historical formation, and an aesthetic mode. The essays in this work expand the sexual archive and its lexicon by introducing new vocabularies to familiar sexual scenes in early modern literature and culture and by bringing lesser-known scenes to bear on the study of sexuality in the period. Providing a capacious theory of sexuality and historical precedents for contemporary kinky practices, The Kinky Renaissance explores the erotic potential of early modern literature and pauses over various kinks nestled between and beside them. The collection boldly argues for a broader concept of a kinky Renaissance—one which reorients the terms of both the history of sexuality and queer theory more broadly.

A provocative essay collection that theorizes the Renaissance through the lens of kink.The Kinky Renaissance is a groundbreaking collection of essays that explore kink as a theoretical analytic, a historical formation, and an aesthetic mode. The essays in this work expand the sexual archive and its lexicon by introducing new vocabularies to familiar sexual scenes in early modern literature and culture and by bringing lesser-known scenes to bear on the study of sexuality in the period. Providing a capacious theory of sexuality and historical precedents for contemporary kinky practices, The Kinky Renaissance explores the erotic potential of early modern literature and pauses over various kinks nestled between and beside them. The collection boldly argues for a broader concept of a kinky Renaissance—one which reorients the terms of both the history of sexuality and queer theory more broadly.

Explores the role of the mind in creating erotic experience on the early modern stageAdvances 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 playsTo ‘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.