The passionate shepherd and his love. Analysis of The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe 2019-01-07

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love: Summary, Theme & Analysis

Shepherds were people who guarded, tended, and herded animals, such as sheep. The meter, though seemingly regular, gives a great deal of meaning and music to this poem. But the reality is that relationships were tricky business back in Marlowe's day, and they haven't become any simpler here in the 21st century. And we will sit upon the Rocks, Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow Rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing Madrigals. If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love.

5. Passionate Shepherd to His Love. C. Marlowe. The Golden Treasury

Love in the May countryside will be like a return to the Garden of Eden. Likewise, he talks about how food will be 'prepared each day for thee and me,' but never mentions that it will be her doing the preparation. Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields. This… 972 Words 4 Pages only a year apart, Christopher Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to His Love 1599 and its seemingly-contradictory retort, Sir Walter Raleigh's The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd 1600 , collectively set a fascinating scene. Myrtle was an appropriate nature symbol from the Greek and Roman mythologies from which the first pastoral poems come to insert into a love-poem.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe

The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love. What bothers me most about it is not that such human and innate things exists, but rather that so many bards prefer to mask it with flowery speech and hide behind a mistaken label of love. Due to the fact that their lives are now devoted to one another and to the world they inhabit, they have time to notice the details around them. This is in direct contrast to the life which historical evidence suggests that Marlowe led and is, perhaps, a poem and a dream, and an escape from reality. Releigh combines carpe diem with tempus fugit in an unusual way. This places the composition of the poem somewhere near the beginning of Marlowe's career, and definitely before he became a bigshot in the theater world. My ignorance allowed me to believe that Marlowe's poem was simply about a confession of love in an eloquent fashion and that Sir Walter Raleigh's reply was merely a rejection of that very confession… 1069 Words 5 Pages Comparing The Passionate Shepherd To His Love, Her Reply, and Cecil Day Lewis When looking at these three poems, it immediately becomes noticeable that all of them are very similar.

5. Passionate Shepherd to His Love. C. Marlowe. The Golden Treasury

This includes a life of leisure, watching the shepherds tend their flocks and listening to birds sing from hilltops. Read more about this poem and the hidden truths behind its flowery promises. A skillful and expressive reader might read this repeated line thusly, upon its second occurrence. It took another poet — a man better-known as an explorer than as a writer — to pen her response. It blends the traditional pastoral love of nature with the 16th century's increasingly sexual take on the carpe diem theme. The Shepherd attempted… In order to commemorate his passionate love, Edmund Spenser played the roles of a poet and a bridegroom at the same time, when he was working on Epithalamion, the wedding song for his wife and himself Norton 985. A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs, And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (and the Nymph's Reply)

It is an environment where love will neither change nor end, but remain pristine and perfect. The shepherd promises a hat of flowers and eating off of silver plates, which is odd coming from a shepherd. They all view nature, either bad or good. Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds, The Coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love. A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull, Fair linèd slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold.

Comparing The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and Nymph's...

While certainly many of the adornments Marlowe lists would be within the power of a real shepherd to procure or make the slippers, the belt, possibly the bed of roses in season , the cap of flowers, and the many posies, and possibly even the kirtle embroidered with myrtle and the lambs wool gown, but the gold buckles, the coral clasps, and the amber studs would not be easily available to the smallholder or tenant shepherds who actually did the work of sheepherding. The very first line begins 'Come live with me, and be my love. The myrtle was associated with Venus, too, and especially with marriage rituals in Ancient Rome. In todays world, where we run at such maddening pace, and are swamped over completely with electronic devices that rule us - it seems such lovely little things have become lost. In the second to last stanza he begins to conclude his offer.

A Short Analysis of Christopher Marlowe’s ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’

If the nymph would go a-maying with the shepherd, they would have a perfect life. The rhyming couplets stress the last word of the sentence drawing attention to them helping the reader to understand the poem. One of Marlowe's contemporaries, Sir Walter Raleigh, explored this question in 'The Nymph's Reply,' a poem that line-by-line responds to each of the shepherd's promises. There will I make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. The shepherd swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May-morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my Love.

The Passionate Shepherd To His Love Poem by Christopher Marlowe

By the end of the piece it is not clear whether or not she accepts his offer, but he seems to understand that it is up to her. The lover in the poem makes promises to his beloved about how they can live a romantic and ideal life in the countryside. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Other answers should be supported with appropriate reference to the poem. The fantasy of bucolic paradise is entirely idealized; Marlowe's Shepherd is not a real person, but merely a poetic device to celebrate an old poetic ideal in verse.

A Short Analysis of Christopher Marlowe’s ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’

Her shoes will have golden buckles, and even her belt will be intricately decorated. This 'free love' approach may have sounded good in the fictional shepherd's mind, but what of his love? As a general rule I do not like love poems because love is rarely the cause for them. Again, these invitations are not to be taken literally. 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. This is another convention of pastoral poetry.

A Short Analysis of Christopher Marlowe’s ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’

In the last two lines he repeats, for the third time, his offer. This tradition features artistic shepherds who enjoy a timeless spring. We will sit on rocks and watch the farmers tend to their animals, where the songbirds sing by the streams. The idea traces its roots back to the ancient Roman poet Horace and emphasizes living in the moment, enjoying the present and pursuing joy in life. Despite its lasting relevance, this poem was criticized by several poets throughout history. But any studied analysis of the poem reveals its depth; the poem can be read as containing irony as written by an urbane man who longed for the city rather than the country, and thus constructed impossible rustic scenarios , serious and heartfelt emotion, a slight political commentary, a gentle sadness, and a transcendent love of nature. Literary Analysis This is a celebration of love, innocence, youth, and poetry.