Cori's+Part

To Lucasta, Going to the Wars

By Richard Lovelace

Picture: Of The Battle of Naseby from the English Civil War, the war that Lovelace was leaving Lucasta to fight in

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind

To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,

The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace

A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not honor more.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;">To Lucasta, Going to the Wars is a poem that has a very personal tone almost as if it was originally a letter written from Richard Lovelace to the possibly real or fictitious woman Lucasta. Throughout the poem, Lovelace is describing how he must leave his love, Lucasta, to go to war. The war Richard Lovelace would have left Lucasta to fight in was the English Civil War. Resembling the poem's themes of duty versus love, Lovelace in reality would have had to make the hard decision of leaving loved ones in order to support his King, Charles I, who Lovelace fought for as part of the Cavaliers from 1643-46 in both France and Holland. Richard Lovelace was captured and placed in jail by the royalists in 1648; "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars" would have been among the poems Lovelace began to prepare and collect while imprisoned which he published under the volume title "Lucasta" in 1649. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Explication: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt;">"To Lucasta, Going to the Wars" consists of three stanzas all written in alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter; tetrameter is four iambs of stressed and unstressed syllables while trimeter is three iambs. Each stanza is presented in a quatrain and the rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef and uses end rhyme as well as internal rhyme. It uses alliteration such as "first foe in the field" (line 6) and "new mistress now" (line 5), and metaphors such as "That from the nunnery/ of thy chaste breast" (lines 3-4). The tone as well seems to be conversational since the narrator uses phrases such as "Tell me" (line 1), "sweet" (line 1), "True" (line 5), and "dear" (line 11) addressing Lucasta directly as if he were speaking only to her. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Tell me not, sweet, I am **unkind**,-- A <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">That from the nunnery---B <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Of thy chaste breast and quiet **mind**A <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">To war and arms I fly-B

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">True, a new mistress now I **chase**C <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The first foe in the field;-D <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">And with a stronger faith **embrace**C <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">A sword, a horse, a shield---D

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yet this inconstancy is suchE <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">As you too shall **adore**;---F <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">I could not love thee, dear, so much,E <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Loved I not honor **more**.--F

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">The end rhyme can be seen in bold in lines one and three, lines five and seven, and lines ten and twelve as just a few examples of the line alternating rhyming.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">As well, the internal rhyme can be seen through the lines <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Line 1- Tell **me** not, **sweet** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Line 2- That **from** the **nun**nery <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Line 5- **True**, a **new** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Line 7- f**a**ith embr**a**ce

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt;">To further analyze "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars," in Stanza one, Lovelace is telling Lucasta to not be angry that he has to leave her to go to war. By comparing Lucasta to a “nunnery” (line 2) and describing her breast as being “chaste” (line 3), the narrator, whom may possibly be Richard Lovelace himself, is referring to her chastity and how he is leaving “the breast” of this pure and faithful woman in exchange for the “arms” of war, which are neither “chaste,” since war is more of a public rather than private domain, nor “quiet,” since war is a violent undertaking. Overall, this stanza reflects the idea that the narrator doesn’t want Lucasta to disdain or hate him for leaving her comforting, faithful presence for the inconstant, vicious presence of many. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt;">Stanza Two refers to this “new mistress” (line 5) he will chase while at war, which he describes as “the first foe in the field.” (line 6) This goes along with the theme of chastity and faithfulness since the narrator is replacing the relationship with Lucasta for this fleeting, and always changing opponent in war which are the foe’s he will meet in battle making this new mistress constantly unfaithful. And since there is this sense of unfaithfulness coming from this new mistress, he will “with a stronger faith embrace” (line 7) the other utilities of war such as the items he can count on to keep him alive such as “a sword, a horse, a shield” (line 8). <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt;">In the third stanza, Lovelace or the narrator addresses this “inconstancy” (line 9) or unfaithfulness coming from war directly as something Lucasta will appreciate as well because he will not be able to love her if he did not first honor his commitment to his country through defending it in the war as he states through the lines “I could not love thee, dear, so much/ Loved I not honor more” (line 11-12). <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;">The conflict between love and honor appears to be one of the main themes throughout Lovelace's poem. Lovelace consistently returns to this idea of faithfulness to his lover, Lucasta, versus the faithfulness he is required to show for his country. In this poem, love and honor seem to go hand in hand since, as his last line states, the narrator has to first fulfill his duty to his country before he can be with Lucasta especially since, if he did not honor this first commitment, he would feel too much shame to be able to be with Lucasta. The way the poem is presented seems to be like Lovelace is convincing himself while he is convincing Lucasta that he needs to go war since he constantly goes back and forth between the divide of love for his country versus Lucasta, and duty to his country versus Lucasta. He seems to resolve upon the fact that his duty to his country outweighs his duty to Lucasta, and his commitment to his country came before his commitment to Lucasta, so he decides to honor it.The irony in this is that in order to honor his commitment to his country or be faithful to it, he will have to be unfaithful to Lucasta since he is leaving her for war. Throughout the poem, Lovelace presents three different types of faithfulness: the faithfulness Lucasta has for him, the faithfulness he has for her, and the faithfulness he has for his country. The love Lucasta has for him is described as being pure and constant based on her chastity. The faithfulness Lovelace, or the narrator, has for Lucasta results from love, but in comparison to her love for him, he describes it as unfaithful since he "flies" to the arms of a "new mistress," or war. Lastly, the faithfulness the narrator has for his country comes from this love of honor, and he needs to remain faithful or true to it for his own honor, his duty to his country, and for Lucasta. However, Lovelace does seem to also touch on the idea of his country's faithfulness to him, since many of his comparisons and descriptions of war seem to present his country as unfaithful to him while Lucasta is considerably chaste and faithful in comparison.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 16pt;"> Listen to the poem: <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 16pt;">The recitation below, spoken by Carolou Schlegel, shows characteristics of Lovelace's work through the posed portraits of himself showing how he portrayed himself as a poet and a soldier, and through the photo of a battle that took place during the English Civil War, Lovelace's main subject throughout the poem.

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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 16pt;">Works Cited: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt;">Photo: Battle of Naseby. Digital image. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Dec. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Naseby.jpg>. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt;">Historical Resources: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt;">Greenblatt, Stephen, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16pt;">"Cummings Study Guide." To Lucasta, Going to the Wars: A Study Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013. <http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/Lucasta.html>.