I reported this poem when I was in Third Year high school. At first, I was confused in understanding this poem because it uses highly-definitional words so I consulted the internet for some explanations. I made my own explanation and interpretation about this poem and I analyze the poem. I also searched the life of the poet, Sir Walter Raleigh. His life was tragedy because he was beheaded on October 29 1618 in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster. He is considered as a silver poet because of his use of elaborated poetic styles. Raleigh wrote a poetic response to Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" entitled "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd". Both were written in the style of traditional pastoral poetry and follow the structure of six four-line stanzas, with Raleigh's an almost line-for-line reputation of Marlowe's sentiments. Raleigh’s poem reflects the point of view of the women about love. The use of imagery, vivid speech, and other poetic devices can enable readers to vision the viewpoint of love throughout life changes. It also criticized the work of Christopher Marlowe entitled "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" where he use some mistaken words stated in this poem. The first stanza of the poem states that if world and love will remain forever, then she will accept the love of the shepherd. This means that the nymph made the shepherd believe that she will accept his love but because of that impossible dream, the love was forbidden. This stanza shows the rejection of the nymph to the shepherd. The second and third stanza reveals the truth about happenings in this world that time can change everything and all things in this world will fade and disappear. The fourth and the fifth stanzas show the things that the shepherd gave to the nymph that soon will be rotten, because of that, the maiden will never accept the things that will be fade and ashamed him because of the shepherd’s wishful thoughts that was impossible to happen. The last stanza states that the decision of the nymph will never change unless if the impossible promises of the shepherd will happen. The first quatrain of this poem is written in a very regular iambic tetrameter and has a rhyme scheme of AABB. There are some alliteration in this poem like the words “might me move” because of the repetition of letter M and also “pretty pleasures” that the letter P was repeated. Raleigh plays around with the meter of the poem a little bit in the two lines of the second stanza of this poem. In line 5, for instance, the first two words, "Time drives" are written as a spondee (a pair of two stressed syllables) instead of as an iamb (a pair of syllables where the first is unstressed, the second is stressed). He also used the Greek character “Philomela” that transforms into a nightingale. He used some symbolic words like winter that symbolized sadness, and fall which symbolizes failure. The title tells us that the speaker of this poem is "the nymph," but they don't mean "nymph" in the mythological sense. Back in the day, "nymph" was actually another word for girl, although it generally conjured images of beautiful young damsels as opposed to plain-faced maids. There is an undeniable element of innocence and beauty implied when you use the word "nymph" to describe someone, but the speaker in "The Nymph's Reply" seems to be anything but innocent or naive. Well I think the theme of this poem is criticism because it rejects the message of the another poem which is the shepherd’s love.
I reported this poem when I was in Third Year high school. At first, I was confused in understanding this poem because it uses highly-definitional words so I consulted the internet for some explanations. I made my own explanation and interpretation about this poem and I analyze the poem. I also searched the life of the poet, Sir Walter Raleigh. His life was tragedy because he was beheaded on October 29 1618 in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster. He is considered as a silver poet because of his use of elaborated poetic styles. Raleigh wrote a poetic response to Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" entitled "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd". Both were written in the style of traditional pastoral poetry and follow the structure of six four-line stanzas, with Raleigh's an almost line-for-line reputation of Marlowe's sentiments.
TumugonBurahinRaleigh’s poem reflects the point of view of the women about love. The use of imagery, vivid speech, and other poetic devices can enable readers to vision the viewpoint of love throughout life changes. It also criticized the work of Christopher Marlowe entitled "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" where he use some mistaken words stated in this poem. The first stanza of the poem states that if world and love will remain forever, then she will accept the love of the shepherd. This means that the nymph made the shepherd believe that she will accept his love but because of that impossible dream, the love was forbidden. This stanza shows the rejection of the nymph to the shepherd. The second and third stanza reveals the truth about happenings in this world that time can change everything and all things in this world will fade and disappear. The fourth and the fifth stanzas show the things that the shepherd gave to the nymph that soon will be rotten, because of that, the maiden will never accept the things that will be fade and ashamed him because of the shepherd’s wishful thoughts that was impossible to happen. The last stanza states that the decision of the nymph will never change unless if the impossible promises of the shepherd will happen.
The first quatrain of this poem is written in a very regular iambic tetrameter and has a rhyme scheme of AABB. There are some alliteration in this poem like the words “might me move” because of the repetition of letter M and also “pretty pleasures” that the letter P was repeated. Raleigh plays around with the meter of the poem a little bit in the two lines of the second stanza of this poem. In line 5, for instance, the first two words, "Time drives" are written as a spondee (a pair of two stressed syllables) instead of as an iamb (a pair of syllables where the first is unstressed, the second is stressed). He also used the Greek character “Philomela” that transforms into a nightingale. He used some symbolic words like winter that symbolized sadness, and fall which symbolizes failure.
The title tells us that the speaker of this poem is "the nymph," but they don't mean "nymph" in the mythological sense. Back in the day, "nymph" was actually another word for girl, although it generally conjured images of beautiful young damsels as opposed to plain-faced maids. There is an undeniable element of innocence and beauty implied when you use the word "nymph" to describe someone, but the speaker in "The Nymph's Reply" seems to be anything but innocent or naive.
Well I think the theme of this poem is criticism because it rejects the message of the another poem which is the shepherd’s love.