what type of poem is the nymphs reply to the shepherd

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The Nymph'due south Answer to the Shepherd | Plot Summary & Assay

Summary

Stanza ane

The poem begins with the speaker (the nymph) replying to the shepherd'south entreaties. She dismisses his promised gifts as "petty pleasures" and says they could possibly sway her if she lived in a perfect world without any worries.

Stanza 2

The speaker goes on to draw how fourth dimension changes things, eroding the natural world. She likewise reminds the shepherd of the hard duties of the shepherd, such as driving flocks of sheep to the safety of the fold. The speaker invokes Philomela, a tragic figure from Greek mythology, to exemplify how cruel the world can be, declaring, "Philomel becometh dumb."

Stanza iii

The speaker continues to describe the painful effects of fourth dimension on living things and the natural world. She suggests that the "wanton fields" presently dice when the winter arrives. She argues that while pleasant idylls similar the shepherd'south may seem desirable, they are of little use in hard times, saying that a "honey tongue" is "fancy's spring but sorrow's fall."

Stanza iv

The speaker then begins to list all the gifts ("thy gowns, thy shoes") and pleasures ("thy beds of roses") that the shepherd has promised. She dismisses these as impermanent things of not much applied use.

Stanza 5

The speaker lists yet more examples of gifts and promises that cannot sway her to elope with the shepherd. Unequivocally—"all these in me no means can move"—she denies their power to persuade her.

Stanza 6

At the very end the speaker does concede over again that in a perfect earth she would exist willing to acquiesce to the shepherd's entreaties and live with him: "But could youth last, and honey still brood."

Analysis

Meter and Rhyme

"The Nymph's Answer to the Shepherd" is written in a form similar to the traditional English carol class. It mirrors "The Passionate Shepherd to His Dearest," the Christopher Marlowe poem to which it responds, having the same six quatrain construction for a full of 24 lines. The verse form's meter is very uncomplicated, consistent iambic tetrameter. Tetrameter is a metrical measure consisting of 4 "feet," known every bit iambs, that together brand eight-syllable lines. Iambs are "feet" composed of an unstressed followed past a stressed syllable (da-DUM) and are very mutual in metrical poesy. Traditional ballads in the British Isles—particularly England and Scotland—were often written in iambic tetrameter. However, most traditional ballads used a mix of tetrameter and trimeter (vi-syllable lines composed of iii anxiety).

The poem's rhyme scheme is also elementary and consequent. Every quatrain follows a standard AABB rhyme scheme in which the first two lines rhyme and the last 2 likewise rhyme. This scheme lends the poem the musical quality common to traditional ballads. While the scheme doesn't change, the rhymes themselves reset with each quatrain, and the love/move rhyme repeats in the last two stanzas. This means that the scheme is as follows: AABB, CCDD, EEFF, GGHH, IIBB, JJBB. In that location is 1 example of a slant/near-rhyme in the poem in stanza iv: "posies" and "roses."

Pastoral Tradition and Nymphs

Much similar its predecessor verse form, Raleigh'southward poem is steeped in the tradition of pastoral poetry. The pastoral tradition is an ancient poetic genre that dates back to Ancient Greek poetry. The poet Hesiod, who flourished during the 7th century BCE, was i of the earliest neat writers in the tradition with his verse form well-nigh farming titled "Works and Days." Pastoral literature focuses on rural themes: nature, farmwork, and living in the countryside. Although the pastoral tradition centered on these rural themes, nigh pastoral poets throughout history were city dwellers. Both Christopher Marlowe and Sir Walter Raleigh were born in towns, although Raleigh at to the lowest degree had experience managing a country estate in Ireland.

Another tradition in which Raleigh's poem engages is that of writing about nymphs. The verse form's speaker is identified in the title as "the nymph." Nymphs were figures in Greek mythology, pocket-sized deities who usually appeared every bit long-lived, unnaturally beautiful young women. Generally, nymphs were associated with wild places, broken into different groups depending on what environment they favored. Nymphs of the forest, for instance, were referred to as dryads, while mountain nymphs were called oreads. Nereids lived in the sea, and naiads presided over streams and lakes. Although Raleigh identifies the speaker of Marlowe'southward poem equally "the nymph," Marlowe'due south poem never identifies the woman beingness addressed as such. While nymphs in mythology were long-lived or immortal, the speaker of Raleigh'south verse form seems very much mortal, or at least concerned with bloodshed. Her concern is either her own mortality or that of the shepherd, as she rejects him on the basis that love doesn't last forever.

Raleigh's Experience and the Nymph'due south Realism

While structurally the two poems are very similar, Marlowe'south and Raleigh'due south poems are nigh polar opposites in argument and tone. Marlowe's poem has the shepherd making an impassioned entreaty to his beloved to live with him and share his life. Raleigh's, on the other hand, sees the nymph dismissing the shepherd's entreaties as foolish and naive. A reason for these differences may have been the different experiences of the two writers. Whereas Marlowe lived most of his life in London, steeped in literary tradition and academic pursuits, Raleigh had a more worldly life. The nymph's more than jaded perspective may reflect Raleigh'south personal experiences fighting in state of war and carrying on a subconscious marriage. Raleigh's wartime experiences would accept given him an appreciation for how short life can exist. Meanwhile, his union would have given insight on the difficulties of love and courtship. Marlowe, on the other hand, never married.

Raleigh's nymph follows the shepherd'southward argument from Marlowe's poem and refutes it point by point. Where the shepherd speaks romantically of beautiful scenery, the nymph says the rivers "rage" and describes the rocks as "cold." As such, the nymph is reaffirming that, while natural features may appear beautiful, nature is also uncaring and potentially dangerous.

In later stanzas the nymph picks autonomously the gifts the shepherd offers (the kirtle, a kind of gown; the posies; the belt; the clasps; and the studs). They are impermanent things that will eventually suspension or lose their luster, she says. Although the final stanza suggests there is a run a risk the nymph might yield to the shepherd's entreaties, this is unlikely. The nymph suggests that in a perfect world, where people didn't age and life was every bit like shooting fish in a barrel as the shepherd believes, she might live with him. Withal, the world the nymph lives in is not so easy or carefree, and as such their romance appears unlikely.

Alliteration and Assonance

The poem makes use of the sound devices of alliteration and assonance. Ingemination is the repetition of consonant sounds at the ancestry of words next to or near each other in a sequence.

There's heavy utilise of ingemination in the opening three quatrains of the poem. In the first stanza readers see, "pretty pleasures might me move." And then in the second quatrain: "Time drives the flocks from field to fold, / When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold." The shut, rapid repetition of f and r sounds communicate the relentlessness of time and the inexorable ability of the natural world. Other key examples come in line 8 ("complains of cares to come") and lines ix–10 ("flowers do fade, and westwardanton fields, / To wayward westinter").

Another sound device the poem utilizes is assonance. Assonance is like to alliteration. However, it differs in that assonance involves the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words that brainstorm with different consonants. Assonance'southward main function is to give lines in poesy a musical sound. Information technology diversifies the texture of a verse form's sound beyond mere end-rhyme. In Raleigh's poem assonance appears in the first line: "If all the due westorld and love were young." Its most important moments, however, are in the repeated instances of the phrase, "come with thee and be thy honey," where "thee" and "be" reverberate 1 another's sounds. For this reason, assonance is sometimes called "internal rhyme."

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