Lesson Overview 

If there is a quiz today - it is on Christopher Marlowe (the author of the first Nymph poem).  There is a separate reading in the students' textbook on Marlowe (a historical background and his nymph poem).  The students have already been quizzed on the Sir Walter Raleigh intro and poems (in the Raleigh & Elizabeth Lesson).  For the longest time, that first nymph poem, "The Passionate Shepherd to his Nymph" was the only Marlowe that we read in the class - which is a terrible shame - because it really is a horrible poem and the students get the wrong idea about Marlowe's talent.   To amend things, I did add a Marlowe poem that the students will go over when we finish Shakespeare (along with three other Elizabethan poems).

We begin the lesson by going over some background on Sir Walter Raleigh - see my detailed Power Point Speaker notes below (either directly in the Power Point or as a PDF).  

Next we read two of his poems that stand alone (again - see my speaker notes below on the Power Point).  The two poems are "To His Son" and "What is Our Life a Play of Passion".  The "To His Son" poem is hilarious in a very dark way - he warns his son about misbehaving - by saying may a mischevious boy, a rope, and a gallows never come together!  I then show a picture of Raleigh's son - and you can "see where he is coming from"!

"What is our life? A Play of Passion" is a very important poem.  It predates Shakespeare's speech (that I will compare it to after we read the poem) from As You Like It: "All the World's a Stage".  Again - see my notes in the Power Point (or the PDF) below.  There are some great moments - and "self checks" for the students (did they stop to figure out what something meant when they read it on their own).

The next part of the lesson is about Christopher Marlowe.  Like Raleigh, we briefly go over biographical material.  And I ask the students for permission to read his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" in a very "caricatured" way.  I preface my reading by saying - "This is not me - but the voice I imagine of Marlowe's Shepherd".  I then read the poem aloud as a disgusting, "lounge lizard" on the make.  Which is exactly what I believe the Shepherd to be.  We don't spend much if any time talking about the poem - it is pretty much all on the surface.  I do caution the class not to get the idea that this is the best Marlowe has to offer - and in fact, he is much much better than this.

And then we get to Raleigh's incredible reply to Marlowe's poem, "The Nymph's Reply".  I let the students know it is not just their teacher - but pretty much everyone who knew what a horrible poem Marlowe had written.  Shallow, callow, and lurid - it was not about life - but was a saccharine piece of verse designed for seduction.  Raleigh's poem, on the other hand, is miraculous and real.

Rather than going over my lesson in this section (there is just so much) - I have instead updated my Power Point presentation with speaker notes - that take you step by step for how I handled this lesson.  In addition to the notes being on the Power Point (when you want to view them) - I have also saved it a PDF so you can see the notes next to each slide as annotations that you can turn on or off.

After we read and discuss Raleigh's "Nymph's Reply", we listen to two songs.  I preface our listening by telling the students that one of these songs will look at its subject in a similar way to Marlowe's Nymph poem - while the other will look with a realistic (yet ultimately - like Raleigh's Nymph - hopeful) eye.  Anytime remaining we will talk about the songs and their relationship to the poems (and to works like "The Wife of Bath's Prologue".

Finally - there is the barest of lesson notes - but the notes on the Power Point are the definitive source of how I conducted this Lesson.