Christopher Marlowe (1564-93) and Sir Walter Ralegh (1552-1618)

Things to Consider:

• Pastoral Mode
• Images of the Seasons and carpe florem/diem

Discussion Questions:

Comnmonplace Books:
516:

• What is a commonplace book?
• What purpose, according to the editors, did they serve?

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593):

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" (1599)
545:

• In what ways is this a pastoral poem? Explain.
• What exactly is the Shepherd offering his love?
• Explain: "If these delights thy mind may move,/Then live with me and be my love" (23-24).
  

Sir Walter Ralegh (1552-1618):

"The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" (1600)
5:

• Is this a pastoral poem? Explain.
  
• What is a nymph? How do the connotations of this term influence the interpretation of this poem?
• Explain the speaker's argument in this poem.
• Explain: "A honey tongue, a heart of gall,/Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall" (11-12).
  
• Compare the use of seasonal imagery in this poem and in Marlowe's.

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Other Discussion Questions:
516:

• Explain: "Commonplace books make it hard to know what the 'real author' or the 'real text' is and, indeed, whether those are the correct questions to ask" (516).
• Explain: "Commonplace books reveal as well as dictate the active way in which individuals read in the period" (516).