The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Review

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love is one of poems that written by Christopher Marlowe in around 1588. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was an English dramatist, a poet, and a translator in Elizabethan era. Not only poems, he also wrote short stories and plays. Hero and Leander, In Obitum, Fragment, and Dialogue in Verse were his other poems. Marlowe titled The Passionate Shepherd to His Love because it shows that the Shepherd indicates his desirous to get the girl. In The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, Marlowe wrote about the Shepherd’s feeling that really related to the theme, and there are also some literary devices in it.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love tells about the Shepherd who will give anything that comes from nature to invite his lover to come live with him and be his lover. He relies on the nature as the gifts to his lover because he is just a Shepherd who does not have much money to buy the girl who he loves such as jewelries, gold, and diamond. So that, he just can give her the things which are made from the nature that exists in rural country – the Shepherd is identical with rural country -.

The theme of The Passionate Shepherd to His Love is a pretty picture of nature. The Shepherd promises to the girl that he will bestow the nature as the beautiful gifts for her if she wants to join with him. Marlowe wrote this poem with his imagination about the nature that can be made as gifts and it can make the girl happy because of it because he vows such as the scenery of rural country (hills, valleys, dale, and field), beds that made from roses, a gown that made from the wool, etc, as his pledge.

The theme of this poem also influences the tone and our mood when we read it. The tone of The Passionate Shepherd to His Love is dream-like because he promises her that he will give anything which comes from the nature, but of course he just imagines about it because he has not gotten her yet. Besides that, it is also passionate because he is really full of desire in his expression to invite his lover in order to live with him. We can see that he is always enthusiastic to tell what he will do if that girl wants to come and live with him and accept him as her lover.

If we read this poem, the first mood that we feel is romantic because we can see by ourselves that the Shepherd really convinces his lover clearly that he will give everything beautiful even though it comes from the nature. In every stanza, the Shepherd always tells that he will do it to the girl. In the other side, there is a persuasive element because we can also feel that the Shepherd persuade the girl to come and live with him.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love has some literary devices that will be analyzed by us; there are alliteration, repetition, personification, and rhyme. Before we analyze them, we find out what style that Marlowe poem is. The Style of Passionate Shepherd to His Love is lyric which is the writer wrote freely without shorten the words. He described it in detail, so the reader will understand easily.

Alliteration that this poem had is shown in first, second, fifth, and last stanza. Marlowe repeats the same sound in order that his poem is heard more beautiful. For example in the second stanza, “And we will all the pleasures prove”. The alliterations of those words are “we and will” and “pleasure and prove”. We can see that those words have the same repeating sound.

This poem has repetition phrase in some stanzas. The phrase “Come live with me and be my love” repeats 3 times, in first, fifth, and seventh stanza. It indicates that Marlowe wants to emphasize that the Shepherd really wants to invite the girl to live with him together, so that he always persuades the girl with this phrase. Even though in last stanza the phrase is a little bit different, “Then live with me and be my love”, but the meaning is still same, it is just quality of conclusion of this poem.

Besides repetition, there are some personifications too. Personification occurs when inanimate objects are given a human form. In the first stanza, the personification is “And all the craggy mountains yield”, it calls personification because mountain is a thing that just can be seen, and it can’t move. It also can’t give anything. Something that can give is just a human being. There is another personification in the second stanza, “Melodious birds sing madrigals”, birds can’t sing, they just can twitter. Something that can sing is just a human being too.

Rhyme also exists in every stanza of this poem. Rhyme usually occurs at line ending in poetry and consists of words which have the same sound. For example in this poem is, in every stanza, there are 2 rhymes. In the first stanza, the rhymes are “love and prove: and “field and yield”. In the second stanza, there are “rocks and flocks” and “falls and madrigals”, etc.

After read this poem, I think Christopher Marlowe wrote it freely, he did not define the words. He wrote it very clearly too, so that we are easy to understand. He related the Shepherd and nature which exists in rural area. His written heard so beautiful when he put some literary devices. Besides that, his poem makes us realize that if we want to make something beautiful, we can make it without pay much money because nature that God give has more precious than the others.



Follow this link if you want to see the poem :)
http://www.internal.org/Christopher_Marlowe/The_Passionate_Shepherd_to_His_Love

Source:
Poetry and Prose Appreciation for Overseas Students by L.G. Alexander
http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/pfs_0000_0022_0_00020.html
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/bio/marlowe.htm