Comparative analysis of two poems

Herrick and Marlowe Poems

The muse of poetry has undergone many forms since humans began writing and keeping records. As a form, poetry predates literacy -- it is believed to have been orally recited or sung. Poetry was a way to remember oral history, story (epic poetry), genealogy, law, customs, and culture. It is often closely related to religious and musical traditions, and many of the poems that survive from the ancient world are a form of recorded cultural information about the people of the past. Their poems are often prayers or stories about their lives, their wars, politics, gods, and a way to organize the mythos of their society. Within poetry, then, it is easy to see the development of numerous genres that give a brief glimpse into the emotional subset of humanity. From the ode to lyric poetry, from the hymn to the metered rhyme, all coexist so that humans can feel something more, imagine something better, or celebrate something in common.

Moving from the Renaissance into the Elizabethan Age, in which poems celebrated love, death, betrayal and tragedy, the 17th century poet began to diverge from the humanistic themes and explore the changes in an everyday individual's life. A popular genre that is both empowering and exceedingly poplar is called the carpe diem format. Carpe Diem, most famously exploited by Robin William's in the 1989 motion picture "Dead Poet's Society," is Latin for "seize the day," and is a wonderful inspiration for many poets.

For example, the 1648 poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," by Robert Herrick, recognizes the brevity of life and therefore the requirement that one lives life in the moment without wasting time or effort. In fact, the opening line of this poem, "Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May," is quite similar to the Roman poet Virgil, Collige, Viro, Rosas (gather, girl, the roses), and has merged into the vernacular as a popular, if rustic, rubric of advice.

Similarly, the English poet Christopher Marlow wrote "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," published in 1599, six years after his death. As one of the most well-known love poems in the English language, it is also notable as a reply to Sir Walter Raleigh's "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd." Raleigh, of course, was more jaded about love, and his reply to Marlowe is critical of Marlow's youth, romance, and even rhythm. However, Marlowe's work was of great influence onto future poets, and "The Passionate Shepherd," even made into a song.

Within both poems, the worldview is clearly optimistic -- sunny, life full of love and pleasure, and a need for the individual to express is outward emotions through the senses:

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove…. (Marlowe, lines 1-2)

The age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer… (Herrick, lines 9-10)

Whereas Herrick is rather dichotomous in his view -- life is this now and will be that later; if you do not do this now, you will be unable to later, Marlowe is more subtle in his approach to both emotion and the passage of time:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying (Herrick, 3-4)

The shepherd's swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my love (Marlow, 21-24)

Note how black and white the mood is for Herrick, as well as the rhythm -- almost marshal. For Marlowe, the muse of song and dance are juxtaposed with the senses to inform a larger world -- not of innocent threats and fears, but rather one of coy teasing and delight.

Further, this rather flirtatious repartee' leads one to view the symbolic nature of love as part of the reason to make each day the most -- for what does one have if not love? Marlowe is full of symbols that evoke not only the season of Spring, but of more sylvan delights -- "valleys, groves, hills and fields," "shepherds and their flocks." Yet, Marlowe can be blunt as well, as he makes a bed of roses with "a thousand fragrant poises." Too, there is almost sexual tension and symbology when he comments on "ivy buds," "coral clasps," and "amber studs," -- clearly then indicating, "And if these pleasures may they move, Come live with me, and be my love" (Marlowe, 19-20).

This, combined with the sensuality of the words and timbre, almost lifts one out of reality and into a meadow of rather earthly delights in which one sits upon rocks, watches shepherds, yet By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals (Marlowe, 7-8).

In contrast, however, there is no less fervor in Herrick, yet it is not as languid, not as sensuous, and clearly not as coy about love. For Herrick, the flower either blooms or it dies; one is either young or too old, and even the rosebuds are waiting to be taken, for if not, they, too, will be gone.

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he's to setting

But being spent, the worse and worst,

Times still succeed the former (Herrick, 7-8; 11-12).