In the early modern period, poets William Shakespeare and Richard Barnfield utilized erotic and homoerotic language to subvert English Petrarchan conventions and explore the transformative effects of love and desire on the mind and body. Coppelia Kahn confirms as such by suggesting that by means of echoing Ovids tales of Metamorphoses, Shakespeares poetry captures the overwhelming psychological changes wrought by desire, as well as its often-grotesque physical mutations. Less drastically, Bruce Smith proposes Barnfields poetry as focusing on the internal transformations of the individual caused by love and desire, moving from expressed desire towards self-control within Elizabethan social boundaries: Barnfield makes sure we experience things in chronological order: first desire, then constraint. Thus, I would concur with both Kahn and Smith and extend upon their arguments by suggesting that through language devices such as imagery and metaphor, Shakespeare and Barnfields authorship reflects the propensity of early modern poetry to illustrate the transformative effects of love and de
sire on the individual in the sixteenth century. In his Epyllion Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare destabilizes English Petrarchan rhetoric by placing Venus in the role of masculine suitor, and Adonis, as her object of desire. Using hypersexualized metaphors and animalistic imagery, Shakespeare focuses on the erotic, queer nature of Venuss love to highlight the all-consuming role of desire in changing both her and Adoniss bodies and minds. Likewise, in his lyrical verse The Affectionate Shepherd, Barnfield undermines traditional Petrarchan convention by exploring the homoerotic relationship between Daphnis and Ganymede, wherein Daphnis pursues the resistant Ganymede. Barnfield utilizes queer rhetoric and youthful imagery to articulate the role of desire in driving Daphniss sexual fantasies and also, in limiting him to the confines of Elizabethan tradition. By doing so, Barnfield allegorically captures the internal transformations individuals undergo to confirm. Ultimately, through symbolic language, both texts depict the overt, often forceful transformations, love, and desire can cause.