Poetry is the type of art which people admire. Reading poetry, people relax, they begin to think about something high and what is never of their interest. There are a lot of topics which are present in the poems of different writers. That can be love and hatred, peace and war, nature, politics and just people, who are described from different point of view. Poets usually show their attitude to this or that event in their writings. Poems about love are the most influential, reading them you feel as if also in love and your heart may be filled with warm feelings.
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is the poem by Christopher Marlowe which deals with the love of a shepherd to a girl, who is the best for him and he promises to dance for her to his friends. Reading the poem it seems that the shepherd tries to show us that people should admire the moment they live in without thinking about future. The main idea is that the future will be later and if a person feels happy now, he/she should live only in this moment without thinking about consequences and leave the problems for tomorrow.
The poem makes me think that love is the main thing in life. The boy, who loves his girl, never asks for long relations, there is no even talk about the future and this confirms that the poem has neither historical nor time borders. At the same time it may push to the opinion that the shepherd do not want to think about the future, he thinks only about present time, present entertainments. He asks his love to come with him, to love him at that very moment. At the same time, there is no any confirmationthat the shepherd loves her. It is the impression that it is only sexual attraction and nothing more. He just wants to possess her, to stay with her alone and take sexual enjoyment from her. This is the reason why there is no long-term promise, as the shepherd is not in love, he just want to entertain the girl he likes.
The promises which he gives to the girl, if she accepts his love, are impossible to do but these promises are great and it is impossible to resist and to refuse from such beautiful offer. The very title of the poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” shows that there is no any love, just passion. In general, it is passion that pushes people to crazy actions to win the love of the girl. The rural surroundings make the whole situation. It is not idle that the author had chosen the village but not the city. Rural boys and girls are more trustful and simpler, they do not need expensive presents and crazy actions, they just want to listen to the beautiful words, to be admired and worshiped.
The main peculiarity of the poem is that there is no girl there. The whole poem is like a monologue of the boy to his love. He reader never knows what the girl’s answer was. The reader also knows neither her attitude to him nor the development of their relations. The information about the girl comes from the shepherd. The poem is like the piece from some play where the shepherd falls in love from the first sight and under the impression and filled with the emotions and passion turns to his object of admiring. Reading the play till the end you want to get some response, you wait for the answer which never comes.
“Come with me and be my love” is the line which is repeated three times during the poem. And this stylistic device proves one more time that the boy’s intentions are not love but sexual entertainment. The shepherd intentions are great and at the end of its reading there is no any other answer than “yes”, but as it was said above, we do not know the answer. Shepherd tells about his love so emotionally that it is impossible for the writer to avoid the exaggerations which were discussed above when the impossible actions were mentioned.
The poem about love cannot be written with simple words so the “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe is also full of metaphors and epithets, which make the poem more vivid and colorful.
In conclusion it could be said that the poem is full of positive emotions and the optimism which is seen there is handled to the reader. The poem seems to be about love, but in general it is about shepherd’s passion and desire to entertain one or two days without any responsibility and long-term relations. The boy is ready to tell any words, to promise everything if only the girl will accept his offer. The poem is like a monologue, or if to consider it as a dialogue, so it is as if the part of some play about love and the girl’s response is omitted.