Christopher Marlowe's “The Shepherd Passionate to His Love” and Andrew Marvell's “To His Coy Mistress” offer powerful examples of sensual Renaissance carpe poetry diem. In both poems, the poet-speakers attempt to spur their beloveds into action through various compliments and rhythmic patterns that create a hurried tone. However, at this point, the speakers' tactics diverge. Marlowe's poet-speaker focuses on a hypothetical abstract shepherd peppered with allusions in an attempt to win the affections of his love. In contrast, Marvell's speaker takes a much more explicit and logical approach as he laments the consequences of their delayed union and urges his lover to waste no time in consummating their relationship. Ultimately, both poet-orators focus on carpe diem as a tool to persuade their lovers of perspective. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Marlowe's poet-speaker, the shepherd, sets the sensual and rushed tone of the poem in the first two lines, saying "Come and live with me and my love / and we will experience all the pleasures" (1-2) .Within these lines, the shepherd uses the imperative tense to show the rawness of his affections as well as vague allusions in the word "pleasures" to create an element of sensuality. Likewise, speaking in iambic tetrameter, the lines flow in a fast-paced rhyme, creating tension in the poem, as if time were of the essence. This technique helps cement the presence of carpe diem within the poem. The poet-speaker concludes this quatrain by describing the physical environment, speaking in terms pastoral settings as he introduces "valleys, groves, hills, and fields" (3). Since pastoral settings, in the Romantic tradition, are often intended to evoke the sublime (or the beautiful, which is not the same thing), the poet-speaker uses here the physical features of the landscape to create a scene of peaceful serenity in which his love could be won. In conjunction with the rhythmic elements of the poem, Marlowe's poet-speaker emphasizes the joy of living in the moment. Unlike the first quatrain, in the second the shepherd takes a step back by talking about simple pleasures. Promising his love that "they will sit on the rocks, / Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, / By shallow rivers at whose falls / Melodious birds sing madrigals", the poet-speaker paints an idyllic picture for his lover (5- 8) . This tactic also ties the mistress to the serene landscape that has already been described. The poet-speaker's slow speech pattern, emphasized in the enjambement of lines 7 and, elongates the sentences of this section and hides the underlying tension of the iambic tetrameter. As the poem progresses, the poet-speaker's assumptions become hyperbolic. The shepherd tells his mistress that “…I will make you beds of roses / And a thousand scented bouquets, / A headdress of flowers and a tunic / All embroidered with myrtle leaves” (9-12). As the poet-speaker's gifts become more extravagant, his speech becomes noticeably faster. The comma in line 11 speeds up the pace of the poem, creating the impression that the shepherd is rapidly reciting a list of various gifts. Although hyperbolic, the fast pace creates the illusion that the gifts are real. Furthermore, the feminine rhyme punctuates the quatrain, creating a lullaby effect for the reader. The speaker continues this list for two more quatrains, elongating some of the gifts, such as "A robe made of the finest wool / Which we pull from our gracious lambs" in lines 12 and 13, before returning to the frenetic memory, as seen with “ A straw belt andivy shoots” (17). The use of "we" and "our" in line 13 exemplifies the poet-speaker's future desire that, one day, he and his love will be together. However, in the nature of carpe diem, the shepherd hopes that he and his lover will be united in the present. The poet-orator's sumptuous hyperbolic reflections end with the appeal to a concrete idea: "come with me and be my love" (20). It is with this line that the poet-speaker comes full circle, with the final quatrain resorting to more pastoral fantasies and ending with a repeated "Then live with me and be my love" (24). This repetition of his desire intertwined with wholesome pastoral imagery allows the poet-speaker to slow the pace of his speech and place more emphasis on his desires, as he hopes that her love will help him seize the day. In stark contrast, Marvell's poet-speaker turns away from future assumptions and Marlowe's hyperbole to adopt a more rigorous carpe diem approach. Instead of offering his love a multitude of gifts in the future, the speaker contextualizes the present situation, saying, “If we had world enough and time, / This timidity, lady, would be no crime” (1-2). Spoken in iambic tetrameter, the poet-speaker gets to the heart of the carpe diem mentality by lamenting that, while he would like to give his lover time to consider his advances, inevitable death is fast approaching. The speaker goes on to create a hypothetical rooted in the present. Marvell's speaker talks about how they would "sit and think which way / to walk" (3-4), using this conditional phrase as a metaphor for her love deciding whether she should reciprocate his feelings. This choice of words shows consolidation on the part of the speaker, giving an impression of haste. The poet-speaker goes on to say that he would wait “until the conversion of the Jews,” (10) in reference to the Apocalypse, for her to make up her mind and allow her “vegetable love” (11) to grow stronger. However, his hyperbole proves that this is impossible, as time is running out quickly. This hyperbolic hypothetical gives way to the true intentions of the poet-speaker. While Marlowe's poet-speaker is subtle with his more erotic intentions, Marvell's desires openly. Throughout eternity his lover ponders his advances, the poet-speaker speaks of the two hundred years he would spend “worshipping every breast, / But thirty thousand for the rest” (15-16). While the poet insists on loving every part of her love, the inclusion of her breasts along with "your eyes" and "your forehead" (14) shows his predilection for the erogenous parts of her. The poet departs from his concern with the physical when he personifies time, saying, “But behind me I always feel / Time's winged chariot racing by,” bringing his speech back to the present (21-22). Instead of the flowery fantasies with which the poet-speaker begins the poem, here he recounts his love for the reality of death. In doing so, the speaker enters into a grotesque sexualized account of what will become of his love after his death. He states that “Thy beauty shall no more be found, / Nor in thy marble vault shall sound / My echoing song; then the worms will test / That long-preserved virginity, / And your characteristic honor will turn to dust” (25-29). The speaker offers a false carpe diem-esqe dichotomy: if I can't take your virginity, it will be left to the worms. This stark transition from images of winged chariots and eternal worship to the realities of death is the speaker's way of showing his lover why they must always live in the present. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay While the shepherd of.