Compare And Contrast Essay Jino

Compare and Contrast Essay
Jin Oh
Mrs. Munson

Although numerous pieces of literature can be rooted from one subject, each piece can be distinctively peculiar from one another. It is an author’s personal experience, the level of understanding of topic and his standpoint that determine the uniqueness of his piece. “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” and “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” are the examples of such literary works that were written by different poets, yet deal with the common subject which is an ambiguity of love. Nonetheless, these poems defer from each other in variety of ways in terms of their structures, usage of imagery and themes.

Regarding to their structures, these poems may have same number of stanzas and lines. Nonetheless, there are other factors that make them dissimilar from each other. In “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”, Christopher Marlowe, a poet of this poem, has used a great deal of sight rhymes and alliterations to add flavor in this poem and it is noticeable that the ends of each line always rhyme with the next line. The speaker of this poem who is a shepherd uses anaphora in the beginning of second and the third stanza in order to convince his lover by continually telling her that she will benefit from this relationship. Finally, he uses if this, then structure in the fifth stanza to confirm his affection to his lover. Unlike Christopher’s poem, the speaker of “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” is a nymph, who is a love of passionate shepherd. She also uses if then structure. However, she uses it in the first stanza to offer a direct response to a shepherd. Readers of this poem can assume that she is unwilling to accept the shepherd’s love inferring from the usage of cacophony in the second stanza. She also includes allusion from Philomel to make her point clear to a shepherd. By contrast, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” is likewise to “The Passionate Shepherd to His love” in a way that all lines rhyme with the next line. Lastly, a nymph uses anaphora in the fourth stanza and through this, readers can conclude that a speaker of this poem is reluctant towards starting a relationship with the shepherd. Likewise, these are the factors that make poems prominent.

These two poems are also distinctive from one another considering the usage of imagery in each poem. To begin with, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is also known as a pastoral poem which depicts a country life of a passionate shepherd. To help readers picture a tranquil country life, Christopher has included several visual and hearing imageries. Not only did he use imagery to assist readers imagining a peaceful farm life he also did so in order to impress the speaker’s lover by motivating her to visualize the Garden of Eden which can be seen as a perfect world for his lover. In like manner, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” also includes numbers of imageries. However, the poet has used them in such method that readers would visualize a cold scene of everything getting changed and thus providing them with a realistic view of love getting changed. In addition, he uses time references in the third stanza. The speaker of this poem explains that although flowers may blossom in spring, they will eventually wither away when winter comes indicating nothing can last forever. This suggests that albeit poets may use imagery in their poems, depending on what context they use them in, they can affect its readers in various ways.

Finally, themes of these poems are what make them really distinguishable from each other. The reason behind this is because their themes are completely contradictory to each other in a way that one is focusing on the perfection of love which can last forever whereas the other one is contending that love cannot be perfect and nothing lasts permanently. In other words, while “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” displays a utopian world of love being everlasting, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” depicts a dystopian world of everything fading away which implies that love cannot be perfect nor it can be sold such. Like this, even though these poems are concentrating on the same subject, they vary in their concept towards it.

To recapitulate, unique structures, usage of imagery and themes are pivotal elements that make a literary work conspicuous among all the other works. Just as how “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” and “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” can be contrasted from each other.