Analysis Of The Passionate Shepherd To His Love

“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is one of Christopher Marlowe’s pastoral poem. A pastoral poem deals with the idealistic rather than realistic viewpoint of the life of the country. In the poem, the speaker is trying to convince his love to come and live with him. The setting that gets described here sets the mood of the poem. The sincerity and the eagerness of the speaker can be observed

Ralegh conveys this somber realization through his plain style of verse. Though he describes the mistress in detail, she is not the subject of his poem. Ralegh uses Love’s mistress and her destruction as a vehicle to address the destructive nature of Time. He approaches that subject in the plain style, using short, proverbial phrases intended to make the reader aware of time and mutability. The poem contains several lines that are made entirely of one-syllable words, which draw out the time it takes to read the line. Contrast lines 31-32 in “Nature, that washed her hands in milk” with lines 8 and 10 in Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (p. 989). Marlowe describes the land in which he lives, where “Melodious birds sing madrigals,” and beds are made of “a thousand fragrant posies”. Marlowe’s verse sounds quick and light when spoken, simply because he uses fewer words in an eight-syllable line. Ralegh, in contrast, often uses seven or eight words to fill the same eight-syllable line: “Oh, cruel Time! which takes in trust/Our youth, our joys, and all we have…” Line 32 especially requires that the reader take more time to pronounce each syllable, which adds weight to each word.

Leighton describes Browning’s expressions as “fulsome and yet witty energy, which flirts and skirmishes with the inherited convection’s of the love sonnet” (106). The poem “Casa Guidi Windows” takes place in Italy and Leighton describes it as a “discursive poem” and addresses perfection and let downs of the Italian Risorgimento (106). The political poem shows Browning “at her most passionately cosmopolitan, and as a poet” (Leighton 106). This poem let the critics see that Browning was an accomplished poet. Along with her theme of love Browning showed in “Casa Guidi Windows” the “intractable issues of papal power, British imperialism, and nationalistic mythologizing into a strong and musical poetry” (Leighton 106).

Marlowe’s perspective on nature is a rather positive one, and with the use of imagery and structure he explains to the reader why his perspective is so. This can be seen when Marlowe states “And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.” In the stanza that has been presented, Marlowe uses very delicate examples of nature to persuade the reader that nature can provide for humanity, as the examples make it seem as so. In addition Marlowe also uses a very calming rhyme scheme to support his perspective. He uses this to persuade the reader that that is what nature is, very calm and delicate. The use of rhyme scheme also allows for a very nice flow throughout the poem, giving the readers a more enjoyable experience when reading. With the use of both imagery and structure, Marlowe is easily able to support his perspective upon nature.

Hence, she appraises the responder of how Robert Browning, her lover, has given her a new life and hope “in all her green” for the future. The pleasure and ecstasy she experiences due to his passion are further expressed through the repetition of “Say thou dost love me, love me, love me”. This conveys her excitement and deep infatuation with Robert. It also suggests the joy Robert has given her. Therefore, EBB communicates to the responder how influential true love is and how it can change one’s life forever.

William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, elicits sympathy from the reader through the theme of how love can kill. Shakespeare’s use of many literary devices such as metaphor, imagery and symbolism causes this theme to be evident. Therefore, the beauty of love disguises the violence or death it may also cause. The powerful nature of love throughout the poem is easily interpreted through Shakespeare’s use of metaphors.

A slightly different approach to a proclamation of love is conveyed in the third poem,  by Christopher Marlowe.  He,  despite having the same aim as the poet in the first poem,  seeks a far more realistic approach,  and seems to try to win his loves over by being truthful and presenting her with the truth.  However he does this in such a manner,  that the poem seems to contain a touch of sarcasm in it.

The Passionate Shepherd To His Love; by Christopher Marlowe and The Nymph’s Reply To The Shepherd by: Sir. Walter Raleigh. The purpose of this writing is to compare and contrast the two speakers point of view in the poem. I will also be discussing the four major themes of the: Passionate Shepherd To His Love and The Nymph's reply To The Shepherd, such as nature, love, material world, and time. I will be using evidence and lines from the two pastoral poems to help support my answers.

This emphasis to various emotions, almost blurring the intellectual aspect of the text, is another characteristic of Romantic literature, not only of England, but of continental Europe as well. The whole text, instead of just

Christopher Marlow’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” and Sir Walter Raleigh’s “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepard” uses similar imagery, but their different tones demonstrate the opposing views of how romantic and ironic the two poems are. Both of the poems are expressed through the tone of their speakers expressing their thoughts. In “The Passionate Shepard “the young man is expressing his love to this young lady who he would love to be with. He is very sincere in what he is saying to the woman and is trying his best to swoop her off her feet. In Raleigh’s Nymph the speaker is tone is very contradicting toward what is being said in Marlow’s Passionate Shephard.

After a long and perilous journey from Verona, Catullus had finally arrived at Rome. As he stood by the entrance to that magnificent and intimidating city, his emotions overtook him like a tempestuous storm. He had left his family and his filial duties in order to pursue a glorious career in his vocation and avocation: poetry. For Catullus, the small town of Verona was a cultural wasteland; it suffered from a paucity of playwrights, poets, and prose writers. Only in Rome, with its diverse and cultured populace, could he truly fulfill his dreams of becoming one of Latin’s greatest poets. Thus, as he stood by the gates of Rome, he felt a mixture of feelings; excitement and apprehension at the future lying beyond the entranceway’s ivory veneer, and a sense of sadness and melancholia at the past he was forever abandoning.

not hear her recite this poem I can imagine in my own mind that her

Debora B. Schwartz in her article, "Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Comedy" highlights the fact that the major themes which are typically discussed in pastoral poetry include: "love and seduction;… the corruption of the city or court vs. the ‘purity’ of idealized country life…" (par. 2). In the poem, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," the theme of the "'purity' of idealized country life" is explored when the male persona attempts to use words which conjure up images of an paradise which he and his love interest can escape to sexually gratify each other. The male persona entices his love interest to "come live" with him and be his love (l. 1). He desires that he and his lover's "prove" the various "pleasures" that "woods or steepy mountain yields" (ll. 2, 4). This argument is rebuffed by the female persona in the poem, "The Nymph's Reply to Her Husband," when she states the following: "Time drives the flocks from field to fold, /When rivers rage and rocks grow cold" (ll. 5-6). It should be noted that these lines reflect the following lines of Marlowe's poem: "And we will sit upon the rocks, / seeing the shepherds feed their flocks/ by shallow rivers…" (ll. 5-7). The female persona undermines the shepherd's idealization of the countryside and pastoral life since the passage of time, depicted by the seasons, will change the characteristics of these things described so positively by the male persona in Marlowe's poem.

Pastoral poetry is a lyric poem that idealizes nature while criticizing urban life.These two pastoral poems are example of the contrast between the easygoing countryside and the hustle bustle of a city. In the famous pastoral poetry, “The Passionate Shepherd to his love,” the Shepherd happily describes the beautiful natural image of a perfect life. He wholeheartedly believes that love is always joyful and nothing can ruin the serenity. This poem is criticized for its deluded perspective by the Nymph in a taunting way. She mocks his fantasy life that has everlasting flowers, melodious birds and finest wool gown. The Nymph’s view on her ideal love is infinite, nonmaterialistic and realistic which contradicts the Shepherd’s view on ideal love—youthful, acquisitive, and blinding; these incompatible views tear a relationship into pieces especially when the problem is addressed in a cynical tone.

Pastoral poetry came into place during Queen Elizabeth's reign. Pastoral poems, is a form of poetry that deals with the lives of shepherds and shows a contrast between the innocence and simplicity of rural life compared with the city life. “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is a type of pastoral poem composed by Christopher Marlowe in the late sixteenth century. This poem entails shepherds and the country life. This poem was written in a shepherd’s point of view who thinks idealistically and romantically. Marlowe, received many responses to his poem; one being from his friend Sir Raleigh Walter. Raleigh in his poem ‘The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd‘ is a direct response to ‘The Passionate shepherd to His Love.’Marlowe emphasized on the claim that the shepherd is attempting to woo the young woman through his pleasure and idealistic love but overall does not reach his purpose through the invention, arrangement, and appeal which is brought to light by Raleigh.