Question

Describe the counterpoints that Raleigh’s Nymph makes in his poem “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” to Marlowe’s Shepherd in “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” Analyze and explain an idea or concept from the material. Your answer should be at least one hundred words.

Answer 1

By communicating in creative detail the thinking behind her dismissals, stanza-by-stanza, the speaker inside the ballad, a youthful female sprite, reacts to the shepherd's vision of their "cheerfully ever-after." The fairy, having predominant reasonability, coolly protests the shepherd's contributions and discloses to him that all he proposes is of the restricted time allotment of a human being; his contributions won't last.

Answer 2

On his poem, the Shepherd offers the Nymph a lot of things to try and convince her to love him and live together. The response of the Nymph is to tell him that everything he offers is just temporary and she is timeless, so she won't fall in love with him because it wouldn't work out.

On Raleight's poem, there's a part that says:

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle and thy posies,

Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten

In folly ripe, in reason rotten

Here, the Nymph describes how with the passing of time all the gifts he offers to her become broken, rotten and/or forgotten. I think the Nymph rejects him badly but in the end, the Shepherd would be happier with a woman who is mortal like he is, and shares his view of love and life.