Comparing and Contrasting The Passionate Sheppard to His Love and The Nymphs Reply to the Shepphard - Essay Example

The poetic comparison and contrast Introduction The pastoral or companion poetry is a professing poetry that portray in the shepherd life experiences in a particular convention indicating the contrast between the simplicity of rural life and the innocence. However, though the motifs, symbols, and the themes may converge at a central point, in most cases Pastoral or companion poetry share a significant commonality than difference shared in reality and time passing (Ross, P. 10). On a broad front, Christopher Marlowe’s work ‘’The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’’ and ‘’The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd’’ by Sir Walter Raleigh are worth comparing with multiple measures.

Marlowe presents his work as persuasive proposal in a realistic, humorous way while Raleigh submits his work as a response to Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to his Love. Conversely, close analysis of the two poems reveals similar arrangement of the poetic structure and form. Both poems have six stanzas consisting of four lines each as well as two syllables throughout the poem. Marlowe uses the shepherd narration to explore the joys of nature of a young woman in idealistic and pleasurable love (Ross, P. 12). In contrast, Raleigh applies a young girl as the speaker in answering the shepherd’s proposal to reflect the changing time of various things and a disapproval notion of an idyllic world to the shepherd’s proposal.

The shepherd in the Marlowe’s work emerges as terribly optimistic while the young girl in the Raleigh’s poem appears pessimistic about the affectionate of love (line 11-12). Similarly, the proposal suggested by the shepherd presents dreams, materialistic goods, and love while the response portrayed by the young girl shows reality in action. However, love exists in both poems but created in different dramatical manner where the shepherd repetitively refers to the one he loves offers her a kirtle, Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle as the young girl responses vigorously and frequently in rejection in every of the six stanzas suggested.

For example, ‘’thy bed of roses, Soon break, soon forgotten, in season rotten” serving as a justification for the shepherd rejection. From a different perspective, each of the poem’s form or structure allows a free flow of the poem undisrupted converting their respective intended readers to explore across the desperation of the poems’ characters in attempt to reach their point of views (Line 13-16). However, there is use of imagery throughout the poems in order to reveal the shepherd and the young girl’s voices in a live manner that build confidence with absolutely positive feeling of the offers given to the young girl.

In response, the young girl elicit mocking feelings for the shepherd’s statements with the help of imagery such as ‘’seeing the shepherd there flock’’ which depicts an disbelieve in the girl’s mind in idealistic nature (Line 21-24). In addition, the uses of imagery in the two poems enable the author’s target audience to comprehend the tone of the respective poems as well as their connotations for example, ‘’shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious bird sing madrigals’’ in Marlowe’s poem.

In addition, both poems share similar themes and motifs such as actual love versus materialistic love as well as forms and styles (Ross, P. 17). Comparatively, there are multiple disparities that exist between the two poems in the nature of tone expressions, as well as the use of the poetic setting roles. For instance, Marlowe’s work consists of simple poetry verses structure containing rhyming couplets such as ‘’field to folds’’ which differ slightly in reference to Raleigh’s work which tend to come up with rhetorical thought of what the shepherd intend to offers.

Nevertheless, ‘’ The Passionate Shepherd to his Love’’ articulate sincere affection by the use of figurative and romantic expression while “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd’’ by Raleigh presents an aggressive realistic expression of the real virtues of love in a rejection form. However, the shepherd speaks with a sense of softness tone to provide a more persuasive effect while the young girl presents herself in a gently sarcastic manner by imitating the shepherd phrases (Marlowe, P 232).

Therefore, although the young girl may have fallen to the shepherd’s trap, the effect of time in which she expressed her feelings changed everything. In this regard, Raleigh employs parody and twists of phrases from the Marlow’s original poem to portray his themes, motifs and symbols for comparison and contrast (Marlowe, P 216). Conclusion The comparison and contrast of Marlowe and Raleigh’s works in poetry and literature in structure, form, motifs and themes is a complicated process that can only be achieved through collective bargains.

It is worth acknowledging that, both poems are companion as well as pastoral poems with similar structures and forms but differ in complexity, themes, and symbols.Work citedMarlowe, Christopher, and Stephen Orgel. The Complete Poems and Translations. New York: Penguin Books, 2007. Print. Ross, a. Robin Redbreasts Address to Certain Ladies. a Song. by Miss A. Ross . Ii. the Mouses Petition. Iii. the Passionate Shepherd to His Love. by Christopher Marlowe. Iv. the Nymphs Reply. by Sir Walter Raleigh. Pp. 8, n.d.. Print.