|
|
|
|
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love(Christopher Marlowe)The poem is called pastoral because it appeals to the pleasures (relaxation, beauty, peacefulness, escape from city life) of rural life while ignoring the realities (the bugs, boredom, and bad weather). Does this idea seem familiar to you? Here, the poet pretends to be a shepherd, while in fact he doesn't know the basics about farm life, e.g. he wants to "pull" wool from the pretty lambs. But he builds a really pretty picture for his nymph. "The word Nymph became a generic term for female demi-Gods (divinities), or for any daughter of Zeus. The word itself derives from 'to cover, or to veil,' referring to a bride, or a mistress with which it became associated with young married women, or women of marriageable age." http://www.belinus.co.uk/mythology/Fnymphs.htm
Perhaps he is simply making promises to the nymph to entice her to join him in the countryside - but that underrates her intelligence, doesn't it? Perhaps he is not intending to be taken seriously, and is just writing a pretty piece of poetry. Does he succeed? Interestingly, Titian painted a picture at about this time on the exact same theme where man and nature unite for a brief moment, but nothing real. The Nymph's Reply(Sir Walter Raleigh)The silent nymph in the previous poem is now given a very calm, rational, and suspicious voice. She sees through the shepherd's empty promises, and replies to him in a very cool (unfriendly) way. But does she reject him outright? Does she still leave the door open for a long-term relationship? Her reply is one of the most famous parodies in English poetry. It is a parody because she makes fun of the original poem by using its own images (roses, cap, kirtle, posies, etc.) and devices (rational argument, 4-line stanzas, rhyme and rhythm, opening and closing stanza repetition, etc.) Does is make a difference that this Nymph is a man (Sir Walter Raleigh) speaking as a woman? Does he accurately describe a woman's response to the Shepherd, or is he just being another clever man?
|
|
Questions or problems regarding this web site should be directed to
disenglish@hotmail.com.
|
