Love
As in many early modern plays, love plays a crucial role in the development of the plot in The Two Noble Kinsmen. After pledging an undying devotion to one another, Palamon and Arcite immediately become enemies when they both fall in love with Hippolyta's sister, Emilia. This love that both men possess for the unknowing Emilia is so powerful that it destroys the bond they have as cousins and best friends. The swift turn – from expressing their loyalty to one another to immediately vying for Emilia's attention – is presented in a somewhat comical way, as the "love at first sight" that the knights experience is so powerful that it becomes obsessive and competitive.
Irrationality
While the play dramatizes a classic "love at first sight" trope that appeared frequently on the Renaissance stage, it also offers an ironic take on this convention by demonstrating how irrational this type of love is. Palamon and Arcite are both immediately overcome with feelings for Emilia, so much so that they are willing to extinguish the friendship they have had with one another since birth. Furthermore, both knights entertain what is, in actuality, rather impossible: that they would be able to marry Emilia, a noblewoman of a much higher social class. Finally, the most ironic element of this obsessive love is the fact that Emilia has absolutely no idea what is happening. She expresses no interest in either man, and yet Palamon and Arcite are willing to kill one another to win her hand.
Queer Desire
Critics have long pointed out that the story on which this play is based – "The Knight's Tale" from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales – subscribes to a medieval and early modern literary motif wherein illicit queer desire between men is expressed through the figure of a woman. In other words, the "love triangle" between Palamon, Arcite, and Emilia is actually more suggestive of intimacy between the two knights rather than the romantic interest in Emilia it purports to be. While few would go so far as to say that Palamon and Arcite wish to be romantically involved with one another, the play's structure mimics that of early works that feature similar love triangles and present chivalric male characters as quietly more attached to one another than the women they pursue.
Chivalry
The source material for the play, "The Knight's Tale," has been described as an ironic representation of the chivalric code in medieval England. While The Two Noble Kinsmen is set in Ancient Greece rather than England, it too offers insight into the nature of chivalry and men's desire for honor that often governed their lives. Palamon and Arcite, for example, vow to protect Thebes out of chivalric duty even though they loath their king, Creon. Theseus, too, acts out of a duty to the chivalric code when he leaves his own wedding to wage war against Creon after the three queens entreat him to defend their late husbands. At times, this chivalric code is lauded by the play as a commitment to honor and duty. At other times, however, the code to which these male characters subscribe is presented as fundamentally absurd, as it leads them into situations where they are willing to risk their lives for relatively low-stakes outcomes.
Fate
Because the play is set in Ancient Greece, the characters are devoted to the notion that their fates are controlled and determined by the gods. This concept of divine providence is what allows the characters to make sense of their otherwise chaotic world. Theseus, for example, perceives his defeat of Creon as a divinely inspired acknowledgment that the Athenians are moral and just and Creon was tyrannical and had to be extinguished. At the end of the play, the sudden death of Arcite and the subsequent union of Palamon and Emilia is explained (again by Theseus) as a series of answered prayers to the gods Mars (war), Venus (love), and Diana (chastity), to whom Arcite, Palamon, and Emilia prayed, respectively.
Friendship
The play places an enormous focus on friendship, not just that between Arcite and Palamon, but also between Theseus and Pirithous and Emilia and her close confidant, Flavina. All of these bonds are portrayed as intimate connections to which the participants can turn in times of worry or distress. The friendship between Arcite and Palamon is even presented as a complimentary whole – that is, Arcite's more rational mindset is offset by Palamon's passionate and dreamy personality. Despite the enmity that arises between the cousins over Emilia, the play ends on a note of enduring friendship as Arcite "bequeaths" Emilia to Palamon, suggesting that the two friends will always be connected.
Gender
The female characters in the play are decidedly less powerful than their male counterparts, due largely to the culture in which the play is set (and that in which it was written). Despite their lack of immediate power, however, the women of the play often lend critical eyes and thoughtful insight toward circumstances that the men simply accept without question. When Arcite dies at the end of the play, for example, Emilia asks earnestly, "Is this winning?" and Hippolyta laments the enmity that developed between the two cousins in the first place. By contrast, Theseus simply accepts this ending as fated by the gods of war and love. Thus, while the women of the play generally possess less agency than the men, their observant and curious perspectives lends the play some of its most thought-provoking social commentary.
