The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry Before 1600

guise of the simple life of shepherds. Heninger and
others observe that even Marlowe’s poem betrays
ambivalence, with sophisticated details like gold buck-
les and amber studs revealing the unavoidable con-
tamination of the pastoral ideal by the worldly.
Defi antly, the so-called shepherd insists on the ideal
regardless. His self-conscious strain in maintaining
the illusion suggests that he is less naive than the
skeptical nymph implies. Their shared awareness of the

ideal’s vulnerability complicates the relationship between

their poems.

FURTHER READING

Heninger, S. K. “The Passionate Shepherd and the Philo-

sophical Nymph.” Renaissance Papers (1962): 63–70.

Latham, Agnes M. C., ed. The Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951.

Christine Coch

294 “NYMPH’S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD, THE”