The Passionate Shepherd Poems :: Poems Poetry Shepherds Essays

The Passionate ward Poems The songs The Passionate ward to His Love (Marlowe), The nymphs Reply to the Shepherd (Raleigh), and Song (Lewis ) all focus on the same basic diagram and characters but vary considerably in point of view and theme. This distinction comes primarily through the exit 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 virtually opposite attitudes. The shepherd in The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, the original poem of the series, is a wild-eyed 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 too 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 tones of T he Passionate Shepherd to His Love, the contributor experiences a similar dreamy, faraway mood. The reader of Song, however, feels provided sadness and perhaps longing for a ground 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 rejoinder of the woman to the original Passionate Shepherd in the Christopher Marlowe poem. Unimpressed by the shepherds extravagant promises, she practically answers that such 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 moved 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 shephe rd may be able to offer her).