The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Group

Question:

mickey35
mickey35
Student
College - Freshman

Compare "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Passionate Shepard to His Love."

Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress" plays much more obviously with the hyperbolic language inspired by romantic love. Compare Marvell's poem to Marlowe's. Does Marvell's poem make more explicit something that Marlowe expresses, or do the two poems differ too much?

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Posted by mickey35 on Saturday March 22, 2008 at 11:25 AM and tagged with language, the passionate shepherd to his love, theme.

Answers:


  1. sullymonster Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    eNotes Editor

    Marlowe's poem is an idealized version of domesticity.  He is using the beauty of nature to encourage a young woman to live with him and to be his lover.  By using nature, Marlowe is asserting that this action is a natural thing, and is glorifying the sexual relationship as he glorifies the season and the natural surroundings.  Marlowe is offering a relationship to this woman, and encouraging her in the language of romance.  Although the promises being made and the pleasures being mentioned are sexual in nature, he is suggesting a real relationship.

    Marvell isn't concerned with a relationship.  Marvell is concerned with time.  He is interested in the pleasure alone, and is suggesting to his mistress that life is too short to wait for a relationship to lead them to that inevitable coupling.  He thinks that, because the two are growing old, they must make "sport... while we may."  Marvell makes no promises to the woman, as Marlowe does, and is much more specific about what it is that he wants.

    So to answer your question - yes, Marvell is more explicit in what he wants, and while Marlowe uses hyperbole to accentuate the beauty of the relationship, Marvell uses it for the purpose of persuasion only, and not for a relationship, but just for sex.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/his-coy-mistress-salem/his-coy-mist...
    http://www.enotes.com/passionate-shepherd/plot-summary

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    Posted by sullymonster on Monday March 24, 2008 at 11:53 AM