Physical Affection: Philosophies of Lovability in Early Modern English Manuscript Poetry" My dissertation considers manuscript poetry both as a site of meditation on the meaning of lovability and as a material recognition of lovability in a specific addressee or intended reader. Bringing together manuscript studies, early modern English poetics, and contemporary ethical and political philosophy, I argue that an awareness of love as an embodied expression in space and time allows these poets to separate how well a being loves from how lovable that being is.