ipl-logo

The Nymph's Reply To The Shepherd Analysis

918 Words4 Pages

In the poem, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by Sir Walter Raleigh, the author uses parallelism, alliteration, and imagery to help establish the message that over time, love, like physical gifts, will become worthless. The poem was written in response to “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe, a poem about a shepherd trying to convince a nymph to live with him in the countryside. The shepherd bribes the woman with countless gifts and experiences, hoping that she would fall for him. “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” is her response to his proposal. Raleigh uses parallelism to show that both physical gifts and love will eventually fade to nothing when listing the gifts that the shepherd offered and when describing …show more content…

The abiotic gifts that the shepherd offers are temporary. Even though the inanimate gifts in nature cannot die, the environment the shepherd describes won’t be tranquil and beautiful “When rivers rage and rocks grow cold” (Raleigh 6). The imagery of touch with the rocks growing cold represents the shepherd’s love fading with time. Although the shepherd offers some gifts that cannot die, they will eventually deteriorate and waste away. The gifts that he offers are beautiful, just like love, but both cannot last forever. The promises he makes and everything that the shepherd offers are all temporary. The biotic gifts that are offered are also temporary. After a while, these gifts will become meaningless when “The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter” (Raleigh 9-10). Raleigh uses the imagery of sight to show that some of the gifts that the shepherd offers will die. The roses, posies, and other flowers he offers will perish and become nothing with time. The scenery of the fields will become barren and cold when winter comes, representing the harsh reality that the shepherd and nymph will have to eventually face. Like love, all the gifts that the shepherd offers are momentary and cannot last

Show More
Related

The Beet Queen By Louise Erdrich Analysis

564 Words | 3 Pages

The passage consists of a hopeless tone as Karl slashes off the branch. He pays no attention to his surroundings, and later that year, Mary notices the blossoms persist absent. The environment causes Karl to act illogical in helplessness for what is left to come for him. As well, the

Read More

The Great Scarf Of Birds Analysis

428 Words | 2 Pages

In “The Great Scarf of Birds” by John Updike, the speaker concludes that his heart has been lifted by the image of a gray scarf. The poem is marked with joy and reverence to the natural world around the speaker, but there is sadness in his last few words. The speaker prepares the reader for this conclusion through an abundance of imagery, similes, and poem structure. The speaker opens the poem by describing his setting through a series of individual but connected natural images. The reader is immediately shown ripe red apples from Cape Ann in October, and one after another, the speaker uses similes to compare one part of nature to another.

Read More

Rhetorical Strategies In Richard Louv's Last Child In The Woods

698 Words | 3 Pages

In his passage from “Last Child in the Woods,” Richard Louv uses various rhetorical strategies in order to make his audience more supportive of his argument. The passage discusses the connection, or really the separation, between people and nature. On this subject, Louv argues the necessity for people to redevelop their connection with nature. His use of tone, anecdotes, rhetorical questions, and factual examples all help develop the pathos and logos of his piece.

Read More

Poem Analysis: Eating Alone By Li Young Lee

831 Words | 4 Pages

The speaker of the poem walks through a reaping setting, alone. Lee uses the image of a bird who flies quickly away before the speaker can catch glimpse of it: “I turn, a cardinal vanishes”. This matches the memory that the speaker rekindles from earlier that morning, when his deceased father’s image seems to appear within the trees, and disappear again just as his child draws near. Lee beautifully uses concrete language to portray the picture, specifically the throbbing emptiness when the vision is substituted by a “shovel…in the flickering, deep green shade” (18-19). The sad, uncanny sensation showed by the event creates the lonely, sorrowful mood of the

Read More

Cyrano De Bergerac Figurative Language

586 Words | 3 Pages

Love is a complicated thing. A wise man once said, ”There is great pain in love, for we all have our flaws, but it’s all worth it in the end; it’s worth the sacrifice.” We all have our little imperfections, and we have all suffered because of them, but at one point in your life, someone will see those flaws and find them beautiful. That’s what love is. This theme can be seen in the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand and in the poem, O’ If I were loved as I desire to be by Alfred lord Tennyson.

Read More

Romeo And Juliet Mentor Quotes

1087 Words | 5 Pages

“These violent delights have violent ends/ And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,/Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey/Is loathsome in his own deliciousness/ And in the taste confounds the appetite./Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so./Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Read More

The Poet's Obligation Poem Analysis

1442 Words | 6 Pages

Also in line 19, the word “autumn” appears, and it gives the image of the fall of life, and a time that is near death. Even more, “shroud” which is used to describe people’s heart, originally means a piece

Read More

Ode To Enchanted Forest Analysis

823 Words | 4 Pages

The calming light that speckles onto the ground through the leaves of the tree enchants the speaker. It captivates the poet to become under nature’s spell by its enchanting beauty. The power and mystery behind nature is unbelievable as humans continue to explore the wonders of how nature works at its

Read More

Ralph Waldo Emerson Use Of Metaphors

278 Words | 2 Pages

Nature is a beautiful component of planet earth which most of us are fortunate to experience; Ralph Waldo Emerson writes about his passion towards the great outdoors in a passage called Nature. Emerson employs metaphors and analogies to portray his emotions towards nature. Emerson begins by writing, “Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers.” , this is a metaphor for how we think; all our knowledge is based on what is recorded in the olden days and a majority of our experiences are vicarious instead of firsthand encounters.

Read More

Imagery And Diction In Alice Walker's 'The Flowers'

524 Words | 3 Pages

Alice Walker uses imagery and diction throughout her short story to tell the reader the meaning of “The Flowers”. The meaning of innocence lost and people growing up being changed by the harshness of reality. The author is able to use the imagery to show the difference between innocence and the loss of it. The setting is also used to show this as well.

Read More

Compare The World Is Too Much With Us And I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

1044 Words | 5 Pages

He believes that because humanity has absorbed so many materialistic ideals that the connection between nature and oneself feels absent. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” instead begins with the discovery of a field of golden daffodils, “fluttering

Read More

The Concept Of Nature In Frederick Philip Grove's 'Snow'

968 Words | 4 Pages

When one thinks of nature, the first thoughts that may come to mind are bright flowers, green landscapes, and endless beauty. However, in the short story “Snow”, written by Frederick Philip Grove, readers learn that nature will stand down to no man and can take lives in the blink of an eye. In short, this tale is about a man, Redcliff, who goes missing in the middle of a blizzard and is eventually found dead, leaving behind, a widow and family depending on him. He is found by a group of three men: Abe, Bill, and Mike who recovers his body and in the end, breaks the tragic news to the family.

Read More

Similarities Between Sonnet 18 And My Last Duchess

1282 Words | 6 Pages

In the “By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed./But thy eternal summer shall not fade,/Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;/Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,/When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st” (Line 8-12), the speaker uses personification that letting “[d]eath” as a person who cannot easily bring the speaker’s beloved into another world. The speaker is very confident that his beloved’s beauty will not fade because not only is beloved’s beauty he always believes but also is the best poem the speaker can write to beloved. However, the reason that the speaker feels a little bit sad is he cannot find the precise item to describe his beloved, which indicates that the speaker is very strict with himself and the way he loves his

Read More

Relationship Between Romanticism And Nature

986 Words | 4 Pages

That reconnection with nature will renew the world for us. The speaker in the next stanzas reflects how he has lost this connection, as his “afflictions bow me down to the earth” (82) and his “viper thoughts” have stolen his “shaping spirit of Imagination” (86). Coleridge speaks of the wind’s inability to raise him out of his

Read More

Do I Love Thee Poem Analysis

781 Words | 4 Pages

How Do I Love Thee – Elizabeth Barrett Browning interprets the meaning, tone, and overall effect of a poem How Do I Love Thee by Elizabeth Barret Browning is an iconic and powerful love poem. The work is part of Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of poems that Elizabeth Browning wrote for her husband, poet Robert Browning. It is a passionate declaration of love from one who is in love, which has resonates with readers through history because of the rawness and familiarity of its feelings.

Read More

More about The Nymph's Reply To The Shepherd Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document