Title
The Contemplative Cosmos: John Lyly's Endymion and the Shape of Early Modern Space
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Published In
Studies in Philology
Volume
113
Issue
1
Pages
58-81
DOI
10.1353/sip.2016.0008
Recommended Citation
"The Contemplative Cosmos: John Lyly's Endymion and the Shape of Early Modern Space," Studies in Philology 113.1
Abstract
Written at a time when the nature of place was reimagined, John Lyly’s Endymion draws upon Neoplatonic theories of desire to present space as a domain continually reshaped by contemplative thought. In his commentary on Plato’s Symposium, Marsilio Ficino argues that desire can traverse the cosmos in an ecstatic flight toward the Beautiful and the Good, bringing the contemplative soul closer to its object of devotion. Lyly’s play represents this negotiation of earthly and heavenly beauty in Endymion’s simultaneous attraction to Tellus and Cynthia, an attraction that locates Endymion somewhere between the earth and the moon. Lyly, in turn, maps the structure of contemplative desire—namely, its uneven distribution across lover and beloved—onto the early modern court, transforming political space into a sphere shaped by devotion. Together, Ficino and Lyly reveal the way that contemplative thought extends itself across bodies and spaces in early modern culture.