Pastoral Love and Unrealistic Promises in The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Abstract

Analysis: The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Introduction Poetry enables authors to use distinctive rhythm and style while communicating the message to their target audiences. In "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," the narrator uses emotions and sets the poem in nature, thus promising nature given privileges upon acceptance as a life partner, making the piece pastoral poetry. The need to analyze love as the central message of the narrator is the key to understanding symbolism as a literary device employed within this poem to express the lover's beauty, desires, and high hopes. The narrator uses sweet words like a rose to symbolize love, beauty, and desires "And I will make thee beds of Roses" (Line 1 Stanza 3). However, it is imperative to consider the practicability of such a promise. The narrator is so in love that he forgets to apply common sense while promising heaven to the anticipated lover. The pastoral nature of the poem implies that the narrator romanticizes idyllic rural settings and landscapes, making the mistress think that life will be so simple, full of leisure and limited challenges, which in real life sounds unrealistic. To seduce the mistress, the narrator uses a country symbolizing tranquility, peace, and unending hope. For instance, "And we will sit upon the Rocks, Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks” (Line 1 and 2 Stanza 2) signifies the beauty and productivity of the land that the lover wishes to spend the rest of his life with the lover. Unfortunately, one can associate the mistress with a materialistic character whose urge to acquire properties, assets, and monetary things remain so defined. Unfortunately, meeting such demands calls for unrealistic promises to get the attention of the target which ends in disappointments and frustrations as no human can manage such...