Neha Patil (Editor)

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd

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"The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" (1596), by Walter Raleigh, is a poem that responds to and parodies the poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" (1593) by Christopher Marlowe. In her reply to the shepherd's invitation, the nymph presents her rejection of the shepherd's courtship for a life of pastoral idyll.

Both poems are written in the style of traditional pastoral poetry and follow the structure of six four-line stanzas employing a rhyme scheme of AABB, with Raleigh's an almost line-for-line refutation of Marlowe's sentiments.

Influence

The 20th century poet William Carlos Williams joined the poetic "argument" with his poem "Raleigh was Right".

References

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd Wikipedia