The Passionate Shepherd And The Nymph's Reply

Toomer’s poems enhanced the moods of wistful and mournful pastoralism that pervades the book. His poems provide transitioning from one narrative to another, incorporating myths and symbols.

A Comparison of 'The Passionate Shepherd to his Love' and 'The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd'

“Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims is an excellent of example of an author using many types of literary terms to emphasize his theme of a love that is imperfect yet filled with acceptance. In, this poem Nims uses assonance, metaphor, and imagery to support his theme of “Imperfect, yet realistic love”.

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

Unlike other forms of literature, poetry can be so complex that everyone who reads it may see something different. Two poets who are world renowned for their ability to transform reader’s perceptions with the mere use of words, are TS Eliot and Walt Whitman. “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot, tells the story of a man who is in love and contemplating confessing his emotions, but his debilitating fear of rejection stops him from going through with it. This poem skews the reader’s expectations of a love song and takes a critical perspective of love while showing all the damaging emotions that come with it. “Song of myself”, by Walt Whitman provokes a different emotion, one of joy and self-discovery. This poem focuses more on the soul and how it relates to the body. “Song of myself” and “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” both explore the common theme of how the different perceptions of the soul and body can affect the way the speaker views themselves, others, and the world around them.

said to her was true she would live with him and be his love. However

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.

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.

During the romnatic period, poets would mainly send out the message to admire nature and see the beauty in it. We should fine joy in nature and nature should be our teacher. In the poem “composed upon Westminster Bridge”

She keeps souls in a skull she wears around her neck. Her name is Lorelei, a river nymph who has lurked near the rocks in the Rhine for centuries. You may have heard of her, even. Many a sad song bears her name in the title. She cannot help herself, though. She takes no joy in this grim, grotesque task of hers. It is simply the way of the river nymphs. Quietly, she lounges on a flat rock jutting out from the Rhine. She absentmindedly drums her fingers against the skull's smooth cranium. It belonged to a man, once. His name was Bernard, her first victim. He was a big, bear of a man, and easily as brave. Unfortunately, he was no match for the fateful Lorelei. She sighs lightly. That day passed long ago, when she was still just a young nymph.

After reading “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” and “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”, I agree more with the Nymph. One reason is that the Shepherd stretches the truth in many ways, like telling the Nymph that he will make her a bed out of a thousand roses. Also, when the Shepherd tells the Nymph that they can sit by the river and watch the sheep, the Nymph argues that eventually the rivers will rage and time will drive the flocks from “field to fold”. In addition, the Shepherd offers to give the Nymph many luxuries, like gowns and shoes, but the Nymph makes a good point by stating that these things will “soon break, soon wither” and eventually be forgotten. Although the Shepherd offers many pleasures and luxuries to the Nymph, all

Love makes people become selfish, but it is also makes the world greater. In this poem, the world that the speaker lives and loves is not limited in “my North, my South, my East and West / my working week and my Sunday rest” (9-10), it spreads to “My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song (11). The poem’s imagery dominates most of the third stanza giving readers an image of a peaceful world in which everything is in order. However, the last sentence of the stanza is the decisive element. This element not only destroys the inner world of the speaker, but it also sends out the message that love or life is mortal.

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.

The passionate shepherd to His love poem is a poem that portrays the basic romanticizing of the country living which describes the nature of the environments and is very sentimental. Christopher’s poem is showing the best fantasy of ordinary romance that would be much better felt in the countryside other than the urban side of the country. Nature is of the essence. The nymph's reply to the shepherd Poem, on the other hand, is based on how he perceives the passionate shepherds to his love. Sir Walter has a different perception of the nature romantics; he presents a contrast in his poem. Christopher Marlowe and Sir Walter Raleigh are having a dialogue which is contradictory dialogue.