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The Passionate Shepherd to His Love summary

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love summary

This poem focuses on life in a country. The speaker of the poem is visualizing all the pleasures of country life. It seems that to the lover of this poem country life is without the hardships of real life, that is, country life is ideal rather than real. The birds can sing madrigals, which were sung by educated youths of the Elizabethan period. Beds of roses have no thorns. A shepherd can buy coral, amber and gold. It is a pastoral poem.

In Latin 'pastor' means 'shepherd'. The pastoral poem is a minor but important mode that is concerned with the lives of shepherds. It tends to be an idealization of shepherd life and creates an image of a peaceful and uncorrupted existence. The rhyme scheme of the poem is aa bb cc ... ll. The metre is iambic tetrameter with very few variations. The shepherd in the poem is offering materials and aesthetic pleasures to his beloved.

The list includes hills and valleys dales and fields and all the craggy mountains and we can visualize a varied and extensive landscape. Maybe the rocks and craggy mountain suggest the strength of romantic love. The rivers and birds add music to visual beauty, the flowers offered roses and myrtle − symbolize young love, and 'fragrant poise' all are associated with beauty and freshness. Pretty lambs symbolize youth, innocence and simplicity. Slippers are associated with domestic and private life. The belt of straw is connected with shepherd life, but adding coral and amber studs with a belt of straw sounds impractical. But definitely, this combination suggests both the simplicity of pastoral life and the riches of modern life.

The shepherd's offering of a gown of natural wool and a pair of the slipper with golden buckles are suggestive of two worlds − rustic and rich. The chief device used in the poem is alliteration. (live and love, pleasures − prove, see-shepherds, melodious-madrigals, cap-kirtle etc.) And throughout the whole poem, we get the echo of l and s sounds which suggest the flowing of rivers, chirping of birds and the swishing sound of the wind.

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