Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Does the poem change if you think of the speaker as female and the addressee as male?
- What is the effect of not having a response from the speaker's love? What do you think the response would be?
- And what would your response be? In other words, do you think the speaker makes a convincing argument?
- Should we trust the speaker of this poem? Does he seem like a stand up guy, or does he have ulterior motives? How can you tell?
- What is the role of love in the poem? Does it have one? Or is this about something decidedly less noble and classy?
- What's with the pastoral form? And the tetrameter? Why write a love poem about a shepherd when you can write a love poem about, you know, real people?