Love as War

One of the primary themes of this poem is the imagining of love as a war. Military metaphors were used frequently in romantic poetry of this era. Because love was often imagined as a battle between men and women, and because most Renaissance nobles would have seen at least some military action in their lifetimes, it was a metaphor that likely seemed readily available to describe another passionate and dangerous experience: erotic love.

This theme is not, of course, original to this particular poem. In addition to its usage in other Renaissance English texts, it is found throughout the source text that Howard is either reinterpreting or translating here (depending on how one understands the process of translation). However, it is significantly expanded in Howard’s version. He engages with the theme of war more thoroughly than Petrarch does, and also makes some subtle...