The Passionate Shepherd Poems :: Poems Poetry Shepherds Essays

The Passionate guard Poems The poems The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (Marlowe), The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd (Raleigh), and Song (Lewis ) all focalise on the same basic while and characters but vary considerably in point of view and theme. This difference comes primarily through the difference in the poems speakers. A poor shepherd is the voice of both The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, and Song. However, the shepherds of the two poems feature almost opposite attitudes. The shepherd in The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, the original poem of the series, is a romanticistic idealist who paints beautiful pictures for the girl he loves of beds of roses and riches. In contrast, the shepherd in Song seems almost pessimistic. He alike paints a picture for the girl he loves, but his is of hardship, toil, and bitterness, not beauty and love. This difference in attitude completely changes the light in which each of the poems is viewed. Because of the light-hearted, romantic t ones of The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, the reader experiences a similar dreamy, faraway mood. The reader of Song, however, feels only sadness and perhaps longing for a world of greater possibilities than the grim one the speaker describes in the poem. The speaker of The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd shines yet another light on the general plot of the poems. In this poem, we see a possible reply of the woman to the original Passionate Shepherd in the Christopher Marlowe poem. Unimpressed by the shepherds extravagant promises, she practically answers that such(prenominal) material things will fade and the only things valuable are the passionate and pure feelings of love in youth. If her shepherd could make these last, she might be locomote to be his love. This poem evokes in the reader both feelings of romance (the nymph does seem as though she may care about the eloquent shepherd and want to be his love) and those of sadness (the nymph seems to want something more than what the shepherd may be able to offer her).