The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

by Christopher Marlowe

Gretchen Seewald and Laura Berge

Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull;Fair linèd slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.

Historical Context

The poem was written during the Renaissance Era

The poem was written from the perspective of a shepherd. Being a shepherd was common during the Renaissance.

This poem makes multiple references to nature and its wonders, which makes it a

pastoral poem. Pastoral, lyric poems were common during the time

Historical Context Cont.

Christopher Marlowe was better known for his plays where "...he often created distinctively Renaissance characters, providing them with such attributes as great strength, wealth, or knowledge" ("Marlowe, Christopher"). This made him a man very much of his time; all the qualities that he gave his characters were

qualities that were valued in society by humanists. The humanist movement represented a shift to valuing active involvement in public life and integrating classical values with the Bible

TPCASTT: Title

Prediction: "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" will be a love poem that a shepherd wrote to a girl he loves

TPCASTT: ParaphraseCome live with me and be my love.

We will experience all that nature gives to us.

Sit on the rocks and watch shepherds feed their flocks by rivers as the birds all sing.

I will make you a bed and a nice set of clothes out of stuff from nature.

If you are moved by nature's pleasures,

come live with me and be my love.

Shepherd boys will sing for your delight.

If all that makes you happy, then live with me and be my love

TPCASTT: Connotation

• Rhythm: Meter is Iambic Tetrameter, like a heartbeat

• Melody: Rhyming couplets; meant to be romantic, as in shepherd's desire to be a couple with his 'love'

• Imagery: The author creates lots of pretty images from nature when he says

things like "By shallow rivers, to

whose falls/Melodious birds sing madrigals"

Fits with pastoral poems

TPCASTT: Attitude/Tone

This poem is earnest and sincere. The shepherd is really wanting the maiden to come and live with him so that the two of them can enjoy nature together.

TPCASTT: Shift

There is a slight shift in ideas when the poem moves into the last stanza. Until then the shepherd was persuading the maiden to come live with him by presenting all the wonderful things he and his pastoral lifestyle had to give her. In the last stanza though the shepherd just asks outright for the maiden's answer;

if she likes him, then she should come

and be his love.

TPCASTT: Title

The title is pretty much like what we predicted it would be. The shepherd is passionate about nature and loving the girl he wrote this poem to; that's why this poem's title fits. The whole thing is an expression of strong, passionate feelings.

Theme: Form

This is a lyric poem; it is a strong expression of the shepherd's love of nature and his desire for someone to share it with. This poem also presents a picture of a wonderful life living in nature and all of its splendors.

TPCASTT: Themes

1. Enjoy and live life to the fullest: this was developed throughout the shepherd's whole invitation to his 'love'. He is inviting her to come and live and enjoy all of life by being with him in nature instead of living a conventional life

2. Keep life simple or take pleasure in the simple things: The whole poem describes joyful, happy feelings when the shepherd

and his love can be together just

enjoying nature. There are no complications this way; the shepherd makes the simple forest life seem ideal and relaxing

Song- Fields of Gold by Sting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLVq0IAzh1A

Annotated Bibliography"Marlowe, Christopher (1564-1593)." DISCovering Authors. Online ed. Detroit:

Gale, 2003.Discovering Collection. Gale. Independent School District 191. 21 Apr. 2013 <http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/infomark.do?&source=gale&srcprod=DSC&userGroupName=mnkburnsv&prodId=DC&tabID=T001&docId=EJ2101101236&type=retrieve&contentSet=GSRC&version=1.0>.

A. This source is a biography of Christopher Marlowe. It includes details about his early life, the era in which he wrote, and some of his more famous works.

B. This article was published on the Gale Discovering Collection website by DISCovering authors, and was therefore found by a credible search engine and written by credible authors.

C. This source was mostly used for biographical information about Christopher Marlowe in the context of hi time period. His background was taken into account as we analyzed the poem.

Annotated Bibliography Cont.

"The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd." EXPLORING Poetry. Online ed. Detroit:Gale, 2003.Discovering Collection. Gale. Independent School District 191. 21 Apr. 2013. <http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/infomark.do?&source=gale&srcprord=DISC&userGroupName=mnkburnsv&prodId=DC&tabID=T001&docIds=EJ2114320316&type=retrieve&contentSet=GSRC&version=1.0>.

A. This source is a brief comparison of Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and Sir Walter Raleigh's reply: "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd". The author discusses Raleigh's use of realism and introduction of change versus Marlowe's positive views of nature.

B. This source was found using the Gale Discovery Collection search engine and is thus a source from a credible media center database. The authors of this article are also from the Gale company itself.

C. This article provides a brief description of what Marlowe intended to present in his pastoral poem. This article was mainly used for it's descriptions of Marlowe's views of nature for the purpose of analyzing why Marlowe wrote about nature.