Who wrote 'The Passionate Shepherd to his Love'?

Who wrote 'The Passionate Shepherd to his Love'?

• A. Christopher Marlowe
• B. Ben Jonson
• C. John Donne
• D. Thomas Campion

Answer: (A)

This piece is a classic example of Elizabethan pastoral lyric, where a speaker wooing a beloved paints a simple, bucolic life as the ideal. The author is Christopher Marlowe, a leading poet and playwright of that era. The poem’s straightforward rhymed couplets and imagery of rivers, meadows, and rustic pleasures fit Marlowe’s love-poetry and stand out from the others listed, whose styles differ—Ben Jonson is known for witty classical satire, John Donne for intricate metaphysical conceits, and Thomas Campion for musical lyric songs.

This piece is a classic example of Elizabethan pastoral lyric, where a speaker wooing a beloved paints a simple, bucolic life as the ideal. The author is Christopher Marlowe, a leading poet and playwright of that era. The poem’s straightforward rhymed couplets and imagery of rivers, meadows, and rustic pleasures fit Marlowe’s love-poetry and stand out from the others listed, whose styles differ—Ben Jonson is known for witty classical satire, John Donne for intricate metaphysical conceits, and Thomas Campion for musical lyric songs.