Essay on A Discourse of Remours for the Amorous - 1077 Words

The great playwright Christopher Marlowe also wrote one of the most famous lyrical poems in British literature, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. In this pastoral portrait, Marlowe reveals the shepherds desire for a certain young lady to be his love. In The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd, Sir Walter Raleigh voices the young ladys answer to this invitation. The two poems share the identical structures of rhyme scheme and meter. Also, the speakers share a similar desire for youthful love. However, these similarities are overshadowed by the differences in the authors backgrounds which, in turn, influence the starkly different characteristics of the speakers of the poems--their view of reality and their motive for love. One†¦show more content†¦The few similarities in these two poems, however, are far overshadowed by the differences that exist. When analyzing these differences, it is helpful to first examine the contrasts in the lives of the authors. Christopher Marlowe was born into a lower-class family, but his education enabled him to work for a theatre company in London. From there, he became a dramatist, a poet, and a playwright for the rest of his short life. Marlowe was known for the interesting company that he kept. On the night of his death, he was with three friends--a moneylender, a con artist, and a spy for the Queens secret service. The four of them were eating and got into an argument which ended with Marlowe being stabbed and killed. Sir Walter Raleigh lived a quite different lifestyle. He was an explorer who led an exhibition to the fabled City of Gold. He also founded several colonies and named the territory of Virginia. This was done in honor of the virgin queen, Elizabet h I. This was no surprise because Raleigh was a favored suitor of the Queen. She gave Raleigh the honorary title Sir and lavished him with money and land. However, the Queen discovered that Raleigh was, in fact, not interested in her, but was instead interested in a lady named Bess Thockmorton. Because of this, the Queen promptly had Raleigh imprisoned in the Tower of London for thirteen years. His great