The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd: A comparison ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’ was written by Christopher Marlowe. The poem describes a shepherd’s plea to someone he loves urging them to live with him. Marlowe uses imagery to describe the scenery around the shepherd and his love. The shepherd tries to convince her how happy they will be, surrounded by “mountain yields” and “groves” in stanza one. Marlowe does not only use imagery in his poem but he also describes the aroma ‘And a thousand fragrant posies.’ He creates a tranquil atmosphere by describing the harmonious sound in the second and third stanzas.
By comparing her to a goddess he shows that he thinks of her as the perfect person and wishes to treat her that way with his love. Marlowe uses many other examples of hyperbole to show what he thinks his love deserves. "There will I make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies" (Marlowe 9) It would be impossible to actually make a bed of thousands of flowers, but the impossible is exactly what Marlowe is offering because he thinks his love is so amazing. This also shows how he promises her incredible things to get her to fall in love with him. These gifts show how madly in love the shepherd is for this woman, “The shepherd is promising the impossible” (Hacht) Although this shepherd would attempt to give his love these gifts it is overall impossible.
The reader of “Song”, however, feels only sadness and perhaps longing for a world of greater possibilities than the grim one the speaker describes in the poem. The speaker of “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” shines yet another light on the general plot of the poems. In this poem, we see a possible reply of the woman to the original “Passionate Shepherd” in the Christopher Marlowe poem. Unimpressed by the shepherds extravagant promises, she practically answers that such material things will fade and the only things valuable are the passionate and pure feelings of love in youth. If her shepherd could make these last, she might be moved to be his love.
"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" by Christopher Marlowe is an invitation to a happy marriage life, while on the other hand, Sir Walter Ralegh's "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" is answer to the proposal given. Although both poems refer to some of the same settings and beautiful images, both poems have very different tones. Starting with “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” the audience will notice how giddy the speakers tone is, he comes off as a hopeless romantic. The shepherd is very much in love with the beautiful nymph, which portrays a romantic theme. His theme plays upon a hopeful spring time love with the nymph.
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 a shepherd, in the country. "We will all the pleasures prove that hills and valleys, dales and fields' Or woods or steppy mountains yields." Why Marlowe writes this poem is difficult to fully understand.
She will also have "Fair-lined slippers for the col... ... middle of paper ... ... to the shepherd if she accepted his proposal. Even though Phebe settles for Silvius, when she finds out Ganymede is really a woman, her happiness is only bitter-sweet. The pastoral scenes in As You Like It and in the companion poems by Marlowe and Raleigh show nature as a refuge with wonderful mysteries, a place of infectious love, and still a cruel, savage place. Nature is all of these things, an amalgam of mixed blessings, which in differing contexts may be both beneficial and deceptively vicious. Works Cited Marlowe, Christopher.
In the “Passionate Shepherd to his Love”, some of the readers see Marlowe’s poem as an indirect proposal to a woman he feels much affection towards. I believe that this is not the case at all; I believe that Marlowe is trying his best to false advertise his real feelings about the woman, in order to seduce her. In the poem the initial gift offered by Marlowe is natural beauty in the forms of birds and animals singing songs of love, waterfalls, and beautiful hills. Then he makes a proposal to use the beauty as her clothing; which means that her clothes will be the result of the work they get from the land. Marlowe then finally offers the community as a gift by saying that shepherds will dance and sing for her entertainment.
Mockingly, she concedes, “if all the world and love were young and truth in every shepherd’s tongue,” then she would “live with thee and be thy love”; in other words, the nymph playfully suggests that these propositions are not true. By using the same rhythm and turning the shepherd 's requests back upon themselves, the nymph echoes the shepherd 's
The speaker's "love should grow vaster than empires"(11-12) and he would adore her for thousands of years (13-18). In the second stanza, the speaker uses images associated with death, and in the third he offers a plan by which the two should live, knowing that one does not live forever. With this information, one identifies the dramatic situation as a man's attempt to woo a fickle lover into spending the rest of her life with him. Identifying the speaker and the situation is not enough to analyze a poem rhetorically, so one must look at the overall scheme in combination with an in-depth look. The overall scheme of this poem follows an appeal to reason, as proven by the first lines of each of the three stanzas.
Marlowe was thought to be a spy and when ... ... middle of paper ... ...eginning. In the nymph’s last verse, I feel that she is softening and realises that she actually wants to live with the shepherd and have all the things he is promising her but she realises life cannot be like that. She explains in her last verse that if only they could both be young for ever and that love got stronger and happiness lasted then she might live with him. There is a sense of regret in this verse but she is gently sarcastic too, by imitating the shepherd’s use of alliteration and his last line. From studying both these poems, it is clear that throughout there is a sense of love, but one person is showing their feelings, the shepherd, and the other is showing how the effect of time changes everything, the nymph.