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The Passionate Shepherd Essay

Decent Essays

The Passionate Shepherd and The Nymph’s Reply are two very intriguing poems with two different viewpoints on Love, Nature, Time, and the Materialistic world. In this comparative essay you will understand how two people love each other unconditionally, but have divergent views on how to love one another. The Shepherd is in love with the nymph and he believes that if he gives her everything that she ambitiously desires then she’ll come and dwell with him. To me the Shepherd’s love is more based around items and materials in general, his love was more materialistic and idealistic that actually putting love into it. Yes, he meant well and all but you have to think no woman is going to stay around long if the only thing that the man does is get her stuff all the time. Now, the Nymph she loves the Shepherd and wants to go live with him, but she wants him to actually think that instead of flowers and skirts she wants love and affection. She wants someone that’s going to love her and not hurt her. She wants to feel like what she’s getting herself into is going to last, instead of giving her another heartbreak. But the love is there for both of them, they are both just trying to find some way for the other one to understand.
The nature (tone) of both poems is having, dissimilar viewpoints also. The Shepherd’s tone was more warm and happy thoughts. He was excited and he focused on his future with the Nymph, he had a melodious tone, almost like a lullaby. The Nymph’s nature was death related, she was more worried about what if things didn’t work out where was that going to leave her and she was more focused on the past, like she felt that the Shepherd was going to be like another man that she has dealt with. She viewed nature in a cold winter like view, she feels like everything will inevitably leave. Their natures were like seasons; the Shepherds nature was like summer and spring where everything is happy and alive, and the nymph’s nature was like winter where everything is cold and dead.
Their view of time pretty much ties in with the way that they had viewed nature, the Shepherd believed that their love will grow overtime, he thinks that love is a forever thing. He is in a trance of a world where everything is all

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