Love and Rejection in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis and Twelfth Night

Abstract The essay explores Shakespeare’s playful revision of Petrarchan conventions in Venus and Adonis and Twelfth Night . It is particularly interested in how these works engage with social contingency in the arena of love. In contrast to critical reflections on the subjectivity of the lyrical lover in Petrarchan poetry, the essay focuses on the beloved and their freedom to reciprocate or reject the lover’s attentions. In Venus and Adonis and Twelfth Night , the beloved is neither unattainable in principle nor necessarily willing to submit to persuasion, yet their freedom is contingent on their own desire. Read side by side, Shakespeare’s epyllion and play indicate that the critical engagement with Petrarchism around 1600 played out across different genres, facilitated by a proliferation of love discourses.