A Poem by Christopher Marlowe— Age-old Themes and Their Modern Takes
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” At first glance, this piece is so alluring. The narrator describes the materialistic temptations of the peasantry as a way to give life to an image of simplicity and the absence of chaos. When reading through Christopher Marlowe’s shopping list there is a pattern to be observed; he adorns the directed subject with everything the land has to offer. While the idea of wool spun dress may be plausible — he goes on to describe other trinkets and embellishments from different landscapes.
My reasoning behind choosing to analyze Christopher Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His love was because of the relateability of his tempting offer. One can sit through the poem and reel in the simple homestead life this man is offering — an aesthetic that offers a form of escapism to the reader. Marlowe describes every detail with a sense of simplicity that ties to the same aesthetic found along frequently used social media platforms; cottagecore.
Cottagecore is an ideal of similar simplicities and rural homestead life through pictures and descriptive excerpts that became overwhelmingly popular sometime mid last year (2020). It’s noteriety is not merely coincidental, but cyclical. Many iterations of this same aesthetic or idea of simplicity stems from the presence of strife or turmoil across history.
Christopher Marlowe is not the father of this aesthetic nor did he pioneer it, however his contributions strengthened the ideal of country peasant life as a romanticized life to lead. Modernly speaking, you can type the words cottagecore into the search bar of any search engine or social media platform and find rows and rows of pictures or tags of rural home life. The aesthetic is mostly made up of early nineteenth century references of women in long gingham dresses with large gardens and chickens running about a cottage. The point is explicit — finding beauty in the opposing side of what we deem as normalcy; especially if you live in the city.
This idea follows us through history in paintings and poems. At this point in time, we regard cottagecore as this early 19th c. prairie woman — or man — aesthetic. Our predecessors had a different idea of this same aesthetic. Looking back we see the hippies and the bohemians take inspiration from native Americans/Hindu culture or other historical points in time to match the same ideal we are aspiring to convey. It’s a fantasy or vision of self-sufficiency and freedom. below is some images taken during the 70’s for a magazine. While the couple on the left demonstrate their kinship to nature and the simplities of loose fit clothing that take note from the heritages afformentioned — the woman on the right takes note of a medieval sillouette while walking in green pastures.
Going even further back, we see these same behaviors mimicked by those in the Rococo Era. Aristocrats are painted in pastel garments that gave off shepherdess sillouhettes and this subsequently bled into the following eras. (even if the french sacrificed Marie Antionette for appropriating the poor). While the look of cottagecore varies across time the idea is the same — we strive for this idea of independence, or perhaps the opposite of whatever our lives resemble now. This rendition of farm life culture or idealism is a way to express our indifference to our current lives. The need to change from something we feel is either too chaotic or complex.
Personal note: I am honestly a huge fan of this aesthetic and have made steps to align my own life with it. There isn’t anything wrong with enjoying a trendy thing (especially if that trendy thing is something that's been around forever) And this is most likely not the last time cottage core or shepherdess core comes to the light.
Anon friends,
Aylin J. Moreno
