2.38: Reading and Review Questions

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Bonnie J. Robinson & Laura Getty
University of North Georgia via University of North Georgia Press

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1. To what degree, if any, do you see Raleigh expressing his society’s values in his poetry and prose, and how? To what degree, if any, do you see Raleigh expressing personal values in his poetry and prose, and how? How do these expressions compare to More’s or Spenser’s?

2. What attitude towards the pastoral tradition in literature does “The Nymph’s Reply” convey, and how?

3. Considering Raleigh’s determined pursuit of glory, fame, courtly influence, and wealth, how seriously, if at all, do you think he intends his readers to take the condemnations in “The Lie?”

4. In “To Cynthia,” how, if at all, does Raleigh obliquely refer to Elizabeth I, and why? What relationship, if any, between the two might we infer from this poem, and why? How does his reference to Elizabeth I compare to Spenser’s?

5. In “The Discoverie,” how, if at all, does Raleigh persuade his readers of the truth of what he is describing? What rhetorical devices, if any, does he use? What appeals to logic, if any, does he use? With what detail does Raleigh describe the native peoples, and why?