In many works of poetry, there are numerous ways in which the reader can critique and analyze the poems content, theme, and other related subjects regarding critical approaches. The following paragraphs will demonstrate and analyze examples specifically regarding Marxist/social criticism in poetry. The poem that will be analyzed in this essay is titled "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" by the sixteenth century poet Christopher Marlowe. My purpose for using these two critical approaches is to throw light onto the historical and social effects and demonstrations of this poem by Marlowe.
During a first serious read through of "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love", one will notice the theme of the poem is going to be romantic and about the subject of love. This pastoral poem basically describes one lover attempting to convince another lover to be
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The "Passionate Shepherd" may not be as innocent as we think. In his life, Marlowe was not necessarily a great examples of one with high moral standards. He got into some trouble and was convicted of many crimes. If one looks at it at the poem a little deeper, issues regarding gender, social criticism, classical allusions, sexuality, and cases of manipulation seem to become apparent. The poem is meant to be about love yet there seems to be some social contradictions. The shepherd in the poem seems to be taking things to fast and assuming that his lover wants from him what he wants from her. An example of Marxist/social criticism would be the notion of the female having no say or voice in the matter represented in the poem. She is almost expected to obey his commands. "Come live with me and be my love"(Marlowe:5). Can this line be described as a form of social
In the late eighteenth century arose in literature a period of social, political and religious confusion, the Romantic Movement, a movement that emphasized the emotional and the personal in reaction to classical values of order and objectivity. English poets like William Blake or Percy Bysshe Shelley seen themselves with the capacity of not only write about usual life, but also of man’s ultimate fate in an uncertain world. Furthermore, they all declared their belief in the natural goodness of man and his future. Mary Shelley is a good example, since she questioned the redemption through the union of the human consciousness with the supernatural. Even though this movement was well known, none of the British writers in fact acknowledged belonging to it; “.”1 But the main theme of assignment is the narrative voice in this Romantic works. The narrator is the person chosen by the author to tell the story to the readers. Traditionally, the person who narrated the tale was the author. But this was changing; the concept of unreliable narrator was starting to get used to provide the story with an atmosphere of suspense.
Comparing The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd. and the stark contrast of the treatment of an identical theme, that of love within the framework of pastoral life. I intend to look at each poem separately to give my interpretation of the poet's intentions and then discuss their techniques and how the chosen techniques affect the portal of an identical theme. The poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love appears to be about the Elizabethan courtly ideal of living with the barest necessities, like.
G. Ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. New York: Norton, 2000. Barth, Robert J. Romanticism and transcendence: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Religious Imagination. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003.
I do not know how without being culpably particular I can give my Reader a more exact notion of the style in which I wished these poems to be written, than by informing him that I have at all times endeavored to look steadily at my subject; consequently, I hope that there is in these Poems little falsehood of description, and my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective importance. Something I must have gained by this practice, as it is friendly to one property of all good poetry, namely, good sense; but it has necessarily cut me off from a large portion of phrases and figures of speech which from father to son have long been regarded as the common inheritance of Poets.
The essays used in this book have been chosen by Harold Bloom, being that they are still by different essayists than the last two sources mentioned and considering Bloom is not one of them, it is still not bias. This source shed some light on the context of the two poems that were analyzed, but minimal observations on the poem itself and its correlation to the themes. Given this, there was only bare to little use of this secondary source.
Ben Jonson’s poem, “To Penshurst”, reflects a genre of poetry known as country house poetry. This poetry was written primarily in order to please the owner of the country house. Jonson’s poem was written specifically to praise the Kent estate of Sir Robert Sidney. What makes Jonson’s country house poem different from the other poems of this time period is the content that Jonson wrote about. Johson’s “To Penshurst” appeals to all classes of people whether it be a peasant or a king due to its sheer acceptance and simplicity in nature. This poem could almost be considered a literal gift to Penshurst, much like it is a gift to all social classes. In this poem, Jonson writes in the hopes of praising the Sidney’s estate, Penshurst. The estate resides in the town of Kent, and the scenery is described as being humble much like the manor. What makes this poem intriguing is how it deviates from the country house poetry of the time. During this time in history, the likelihood of peasants intimately interacting with royalty was very unlikely. What Penshurst offers through this work is lower and middle class equality among all classes. Outside of Penshurst, though, the same concept does not apply. This is because Penshurst, in a sense, could be considered a type of utopia. This is primarily because of the welcoming interaction between peasant and royal life. As mentioned earlier, all classes are not equal outside Penshurst. Penshurst is almost like a paradise for those looking for an escape from the harsh social standards of the society of the time. Though, unlike Thomas More’s “Utopia”, there are no negative connotations that the reader can decip...
Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 125-156.
The notion of the author has often been disputed when it comes to critical literary studies. The argument centers around one basic question: Should the author be considered when looking at a text? There are numerous reasons given as to why the author is important or why the ...
Love in Desire's Baby by Kate Chopin, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe, and The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Raleigh
Bayley, John. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 76. N.p.: Gale, 1992. 322-31. Web. 17 Dec. 2013.
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love and The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd are both four line stanzas. They are both pastorals as well which means that the are replies to each other. The Nymph is replying to the Shepherd saying that he really doesn’t love her saying his love is fake.
At the start, the first stanza of the poem is full of flattery. This is the appeal to pathos. The speaker is using the mistress's emotions and vanity to gain her attention. By complimenting her on her beauty and the kind of love she deserves, he's getting her attention. In this first stanza, the speaker claims to agree with the mistress - he says he knows waiting for love provides the best relationships. It feels quasi-Rogerian, as the man is giving credit to the woman's claim, he's trying to see her point of view, he's seemingly compliant. He appears to know what she wants and how she should be loved. This is the appeal to ethos. The speaker seems to understand how relationships work, how much time they can take, and the effort that should be put forth. The woman, if only reading stanza one, would think her and the speaker are in total agreement.
The types of love in a poem can be reflected in many ways. One of
In his introduction to the Norton Anthology of English Literature M. H. Abrams attempts to overcome these difficulties by identifying the 'five cardinal elements' of Romantic poetry. According to Abrams, Romantic poetry is distinguished by the belief that poetry is not an "imitation of nature" but a "representation of the poet's internal emotions". Secondly, that the writing of poetry should be "an effortless expression" and not an "arduous exercise". The prevalence of nature in Romantic poetry and what Abrams calls "the glorification of the ordinary and the outcast" are identified as two further common elements, as is the sense of a "supernatural" or "satanic presence" (Abrams, 2000, pp. 7-11). It is with regard to this elemental understanding of Romantic poetry that I will conduct my close critical analysis of 'Frost at Midnight' to examine the extent to which the poem embodie...
Sociological criticism emphasizes the political, economic, and cultural aspects of literature, and one of its main focuses is evaluating writing from a Marxist perspective, which examines the writing in mostly political and economic fashion, including ideas such as communism and social inequality. The idea of class oppression is clearly represented in many of William Blake’s writings. Blake’s opposition to the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists is obvious in many of his poems. Blake’s ideology of an equalitarian society could be described in the sayings of Karl Marx. Marxist criticism explains the reasons behind Blake’s anger towards social inequality. Poems like “The Chimney Sweeper” and “London” illustrate Blake’s despairing sadness towards the phenomena produced by the unjust inequality in 18th century England. In “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake expresses his anger at the late 18th and 19th century's use of child labor in urban England. In “London,” Blake illustrates the depressing class oppression that could be easily seen through the streets of London.