Literary Devices

Poems are universal and rhetorical devices. They tell stories that at least one person in the world has experienced whether it was the author or the audience that reads it. The best part about poems is that they can be interpreted in different ways depending on the life experiences of the audience. Society can be put into perspective no matter the era the poem was written. Poems are not only affected by the audience that reads it but also by the type as well as the literary devices that the author uses within the poem. For instance, the poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe has a clearly defined male speaker because the author not only used in the title like “shepherd” and “his” but the language and overall form

The author uses symbolism to “subtly” describe his intentions to the reader. Roses and myrtle contribute to the tone of the poem due to their symbolic meaning. Roses symbolize love and passion and, as the author states “I will make thee a bed of roses,” (9) shows his true intentions of using the woman as an object. If it were a female speaker, the symbolic usage of words would be less blunt, more innocent, and less sugar coated. Not only does he use the symbolism of the rose but myrtle as well. The speaker promises “a [gown] embroidered with myrtle petals” (11-12), and myrtle symbolizes good luck in marriage as well as chastity. One would only witness a male promising something that seems so extravagant when in reality they will use it to their advantage; for instance, the speaker could mean the woman is protected from every other man, but is bound to this man by marriage and she cannot do anything to change it. He does not state it as bluntly; in fact, he uses hyperboles to make his case seem more desirable. This entire poem is hyperbolic, because the speaker is sugarcoating everything, making it sound more desirable than it truly is. Most women are not materialistic, so female speaker would not make things sound more desirable just to have a man in her house. Women in today’s society want a partner who will love them for who they are until “death do them part.” So if a woman promised a “bed made of roses” or a “[gown] embroidered with myrtle petals,” the woman would actually create these items for the person they love, proving how this male speaker truly feels about this woman. This language then contributes to the tone of the poem, and shows the male speaker's true