The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1599

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

Marlowe wrote his poem within the pastoral tradition, which dates to Greek antiquity. Beginning with Hesiod (circa 750 – 650 BCE), whose "Works and Days" reflects on humankind’s labor, the tradition was further developed in the rustic, or idyll poems of Theocritus in the 3rd century BCE. However, for Marlowe and his contemporaries, the works of Roman poets Ovid and Virgil, such as the latter’s Eclogues and the Georgics, would have been more heavily influential, particularly for Marlowe who was a master of Latin, had translated Ovid while at university, and likely modeled his play Dido, Queen of Carthage (1587) on Virgil’s epic Aeneid (circa 19 BCE). Medieval Italian writers such as Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Francesco Petrarch also explored the pastoral style, developing the idea of a locus amoenus (or “pleasant place”) across genres, from lyric poems such as Petrarch’s Carmen Bucolicum (1357), a collection of 12 pastoral poems, to Boccaccio’s short story collection The Decameron (1353). The locus amoenus also symbolized a site of innocence and pleasure, where labor is grounded in nature, leisurely, and enjoyable. Later Italian poets, such as Bernardo Tasso, continued this tradition, infusing pastoral poems with a sense of innocence and beauty.

Urban poets increasingly contrasted the bucolic life with city life, or the demands of court life, as pastoral pleasures became more idealized and less realistic. By the end of the 16th century, a number of English poets had dabbled in the genre, including Alexander Barclay, Edmund Spenser, and eventually Marlowe, and in turn the innocence of the country shepherd began to give way to more sexual undertones. Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” marked a turning of the tides for pastoral poetry, as writers like Raleigh and Sir Philip Sidney began to satirize the tradition. The pastoral tradition has continued into modern times, with poets, artists, and composers exploring new and different ways to deploy the playful motifs of the natural world.

Theoretical Context

While the pastoral appears to have a simple subject matter, deliberately taking the reader to a more innocent setting and discourse, many theorists have examined the nature of the pastoral and what it might communicate to the reader. A contemporary of Marlowe’s, author George Puttenham asserted that the pastoral was a guise for political discourse, communicating a critique of the courts through an allegory of moral discipline that is rooted in a nostalgia for a golden age in the country. Later theorists like German enlightenment philosopher Friedrich Schiller saw the pastoral as childlike, with the return to nature paralleling one’s return to childhood.

With regards to Marlowe’s work, 20th century British literary critic Frank Kermode considered the pastoral within the context of the English Renaissance, noting how the depiction of the countryside in this genre is wholly the product of urban writers, and possibly in reaction to increasing urban sprawl during their time. This creation of the “countryside” by urban poets, many of whom are tied to the court, serves their own purpose by creating a “natural” world that is in fact entirely unnatural and fabricated. Marlowe’s pastoral poem falls into this tradition, where the speaker is using an idealized version of nature – where everything is at the humble shepherd’s disposal – to convince the beloved to surrender to love. This begs the question, if the natural world is so easily fabricated, what about the shepherd’s love?