The Passionate Shepherd Essay

The three poems, “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love,” “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” and “Raleigh Was Right” speak about the same place, although in completely different perspective upon the world and nature. Firstly, Christopher Marlowe’s shepherd takes on a purely romantic view upon this world, believing that nature will provide for both the shepherd and his love. Secondly, Sir Walter Raleigh takes Marlowe’s idea and develops it into a more realistic approach upon nature, explaining how things never really last forever. Lastly, William Carlos Williams works off of both poems, further developing them to talk about a world in which nature cannot provide any protection against war. Altogether, these three poems talk about a world vastly different from one another, both of the latter poets working off Marlowe’s idea and changing it to meet their own viewpoint.
In Christopher Marlowe’s poem, “The Passionate Shepherd to
his Love,” he brings up the idea of being able to live somewhere where nature can provide for the shepherd and his love’s needs. To begin, Marlowe has the shepherd describe several examples of such ‘pleasures’ (Marlowe, line 2) that nature will be able to provide them with. For example, the shepherd promises ‘fair linèd slippers for the cold’ (Marlowe, line 15) and ‘a belt of straw and ivy buds’ (Marlowe, line 17). This gives the ‘love’ (Marlowe, line 1) an idea of how, if she comes to live with the shepherd, she will be provided with everything that she wants. Altogether, Marlowe paints the picture of a romantic place where nature is able to give the shepherd and his love lavish comforts and riches.
The poem, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” by Sir Walter Raleigh, is vastly different from Marlowe’s poem “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love” in the way that the nymph is taking in nature in a more realistic sense. Raleigh takes Marlowe’s poem and changes it to better fit his ideals, writing the shepherd’s love to disbelieve is the ‘pleasures’ (Marlowe, line 2) that he offers. For example, in Marlowe’s poem, the shepherd promises his love a ‘bed of roses / And a thousand fragrant posies,’ (Marlowe, line 9 and 10) in order to persuade her to come live with him. Raleigh, however, takes this and has the nymph respond with ‘thy beds of Roses’ (Raleigh, line 13) and ‘soon wither,’ (Raleigh, line 15) which means she thinks such things cannot last forever, as everything will eventually die. With these descriptions, Raleigh takes Marlowe’s viewpoint on nature providing everything, and explains how, even if it does provide, things are constantly changing and dying. In his poem, “Raleigh Was Right,” William Carlos Williams’ view upon nature changes drastically from the first two poems, effected mostly by the events occurring within the time period it was written, 1944, during the Second World War.
Williams writes the narrator as someone who is in the midst of war, describing this by saying ‘we cannot go into the country / for the country will bring us no peace’ (Williams, line 1 and 2). This means that Williams is suggesting that, even if the love went to live with the shepherd, all the ‘pleasures’ (Marlowe, line 2) he promised would mean nothing and that they cannot escape war simply by going to the country. Also, unlike Marlowe, Williams disbelieves in perfect world where nature can provide everything, as stated by ‘with flowering pockets and minds at ease / if ever this were true’ (Williams, line 12 and 13). Overall, Williams alters Raleigh’s poem to better suit an era currently going through the Second World War, and has the love believe almost in the exact opposite of nature as Marlowe’s
shepherd. Each of the three poems take an idea of a single world, and write completely different perspectives on it. Marlowe believes in a romantic world where nature provides for people, Raleigh writes that nature will always change and die, while Williams’ take on nature is that it cannot offer protection from the harshness of the world. Overall, the poets Raleigh and Williams take Marlowe’s idea of a perfect world and transform it to fit their own idea.