The Evolution of Love Metaphors: a Case Study

Abstract

If we turn the clock back to the late Middle Ages, what kinds of metaphors were used in the discourse of love? First of all, as we have seen in the case of translating texts from different historical periods, a number of different factors would have played a part in the types of metaphor images used. These involve social class, regional variants, the type of medium (whether it was written or spoken language and what kinds of particular written medium were involved, such as personal letters or literary works) and so on. Obviously, we do not have access to spoken language of that time and the written medium is usually limited to more formal literary works. Our tools for investigating language in the past are therefore much more restricted than those we have today.