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Revision of Sampleand Explanation: Renassisance Poems

Christopher Marlowe’s poem “The Passionate Shepard to His Love,” romanticizes pastoral setting and disregards the idea of Time; focusing on the pleasures that this world would bring to his love if she would come to him. However in a cynical tone, Raleigh destroys Marlowe’s world and incorporates in his poem “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepard,” a world with ravaging Time and her negative effects on the once serine pastoral setting. However, in the Renaissance style of “carpe diem,” Raleigh supports Marlowe’s idea of not slowing down for Time even if she brings disappointment.

Marlowe’s peaceful imagery and word choice elevates the utopia style realm that waits his love. He says, “come live with me and be my love and we will all pleasure prove…”the word “pleasure” connotes the idea of complete satisfaction and when juxtaposed with the serine setting creates an exotic and erotic situation. He goes on to say, “melodious birds sing…there will I make thee beds of roses…,” again creating and reinforcing this perfect world that could be hers, for the one time price of her love.

In contrast to Marlowe’s utopia, Raleigh sets up a world ravaged by Time. He says, “Time drives...rivers [to] rage and rocks grow cold and Philonel becometh dumb,” creating a world in chaos because of Time. He also goes onto say in a further cynical tone, “had joys no date, nor age, no need, then these delights my mind might move to live with thee and be thy love,” further insinuating that Time is the obstacle, or challenge which stands in the way and for which they must overcome.

In a further reading, Raleigh supports Marlowe’s idea of basking in pleasures because the world he creates and juxtaposes with Marlowe’s is filled with horrors and death. Both poems set up realms with and without Time and their effects, but the carpe diem style that Marlowe creates, sounds more preferable to that of Raleigh’s.

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Explanation of Revision:

The original writing and analysis of the two Renaissance poems “The Passionate Shepard to His Love” and “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepard,” was timed, leaving me with minimal time to prepare a well planned outline. I spent a large portion of my time to create a strong introduction. So with about 10 minutes left, I rushed and didn’t look back. In this revision, I added further analysis to my body paragraphs, which was suggested. I also fixed grammatical errors and added stronger analytical accents. The introduction was fine but in the 1st body paragraph, I added “to what effect” the word “pleasure” had--exotic and erotic. In the 2nd body paragraph I further analyzed what Time meant—“a challenge…for which they must overcome.” Overall, pieces were taken out and sentences were added in order to create a better flow to the piece.