Christopherd To His Love Tone

Every poem has a unique tone, form, and style, and can be defined through its genre and content. Christopher Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Love is an innocent and romantic pastoral poem, while Sir Walter Raleigh’s The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd is more realistic and skeptical. The two poems are similar in many ways, including structure and meter, but they also have contrasting central themes. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love has several distinct characteristics. It can be primarily defined by its whimsical tone and amorous message. Unrealistic expectations are spread throughout the poem, especially with the expression of immortal and everlasting love. Nevertheless, the tone works to emphasize this central idea of passion and give the impression of love itself. Marlowe also uses imagery to support his principle idea; by vividly detailing natural elements of the earth, he effectively transfers their characteristics to his portrayal of love. For instance, the incorporation of the
Raleigh’s tone is much more tempered and perhaps more realistic, evident through the first line and even word, “If all the world and love were young” (1). This suggests that love is conditional and comes with strings attached. Skepticism and pessimism take over the tone of the poem, using similar imagery as Marlowe but in the opposite sense. There is a description of destruction and decay throughout the poem, most apparent in the line “Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten” (15). This suggests that love will decompose and fall apart as time moves on. The “If” in the introductory stanza and the “But” in the concluding stanza create an interesting contribution to the central idea. The two conjunctions offer a hypothetical situation that elaborate on how unrealistic the idea of everlasting love is. Consequently, it emphasizes perhaps the principle argument that love deteriorates over