What Is The Mood Of The Passionate Shepherd To His Love

With Christopher Marlowe’s and Sir Walter Raleigh’s simple poems, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd, there are many different literary devices as well as ideas which are embedded within both of the poems. Regarding the first of the poems, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, there are many important concept which are necessary to observe. The title is a simple title and easily explains what the poem is going to be about, being that the shepherd speaking to his love about his passion for her. The poem begins with a simple couplet rhyme scheme, a course of action which would perfectly fit with Marlowe’s idea of a perfect countryside, with simple beauty around the characters. The rhyme scheme continues uninterrupted until reaching lines 19 and 20, where the rhyme reverts back to AA instead of the expected JJ. The poem would then proceeds to lines 21-22, where they would contain the JJ rhyme,
afterwards followed by AA in lines 23-24. Regarding the content of the poem, the story involved is about how a passionate shepherd is attempting to sway his love to be with him by promising her in the first two stanzas simple enjoyable experiences, such as seeing the beautiful landscape around them. Then, in the third, fourth and fifth stanzas, the shepherd begins to promise a variety of different physical objects such as a “cap of flowers” or “A gown made of the finest wool” (Marlowe 233). At first these objects are simple and easy to obtain or create but eventually, at the end of fourth stanza and the fifth stanza, the shepherd begins to make promises which he is more than likely unable to keep, such as making “buckles of the purest gold” (Marlowe 233).This indicates that the shepherd is making willing to do anything in order for his love to be with him, even if he has to make false promises. Some literary devices that are worth taking note are in lines 3-4 where there is an example of enjambment: “That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, / Woods, or steepy mountain yields.” (Marlowe 233). This enjambment is only used to continue the previous thought of the shepherd and helps create a melodic tone. There is also an example of alliteration in line 6, with the words “Seeing” and “shepherds” emitting a hard “s” sound while “feed” and “flock” emit an “f” sound. This use of alliteration allows the reader to read the lines more smoothly and creates a melodic tone. With the second poem, The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd, Sir Walter Raleigh has created an extension of the first poem that is excellent in mimicking and address the ideas of its previous counterpart. The title provides a simple summary of the poem, which is the response of the nymph to the shepherd’s love, and reflects the ideas that Marlowe had incorporated in his poem. Regarding the rhyme scheme of the poem, it is consistent with Marlowe's poem, following the structure and order of its predecessor as a couplet rhyme scheme. In terms of content, Raleigh responds to all of the previous ideas brought up in The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, such as the lines 13-14: “Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, / Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies. / Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten…” (Raleigh 235). In the previous poem, the shepherd offers to create these items as well as other gifts to prove and convince the nymph of his love. Yet, the nymph replies by stating that all these objects would eventually break and be forgotten, just like his love. For this very reason, the nymph is unwilling to accept the shepherd's love. With literary devices, there is use of alliteration in line 3, with the words “pretty” and “pleasure” using the hard “p” sound and the words “might” “me” and “move” using the “m” sound. This use of alliteration relates back to the previous use of alliteration in Marlowe’s poem as well as create a melodic tone. There is also a direct allusion of an ancient minor Greek god, Philomel, in line 7, which helps show that the nymph is an intelligent being. Though these poems are able to be read by themselves, they both have a strong connection with each other and with the real world that should not be ignored.
An idea that is not directly mentioned is that of the personalities of the characters. Since both poems are pastorals, there is the use of both sophisticated and naïve characters. In this case, the shepherd would be classified as the naïve character while the nymph would be sophisticated. The reason behind this would be because of the fact that the shepherd believes that gifts and experiences are the way to sway his love yet the nymph has a more philosophical view where she believes that there not matter the physical gifts, there is no substitute for real love. The nymph had a more sophisticated understanding of the world and sees that the shepherd is not able to hold all of his promises. With this idea, the poems show the lesson about how society should not distinguish love through the values and amounts of physical gifts through the response and reasoning of the
nymph. Both of these poems have many literary devices and ideas which are enveloped throughout the stanzas. Marlowe and Raleigh have created a group of literary works which contain meaningful messages and ideas for the audience to discover