A poor young shepherd

By contrast, the archaic pastoral subject of “A Poor Young Shepherd” may seem at first
to have no obvious connection to the storyline with its depiction of a timid shepherd,
who claims to love the lady promised to him. But his fear of kissing her and admission
that he dare not “Lui dire au matin …/La terrible chose” suggest some shocking hidden
truth that may express vicariously the poet's own fears and doubts about his
ambiguous sexuality. The ellipsis in this citation is part of the poem and represents
most likely his unspeakable, homoerotic desire. Its location at the center of the five-part
poem is significant, since it is the empty signifier at the vortical vanishing point from
which extend concentrically five circular strophes with exact or slightly varied
repetitions of first and last verses, enclosed by an outer ring of identically repeating first
and last strophes.

5 quintils in pentasyllables. Thanks to the play of repetitions, the rhyme of the first verse is repeated in
the 5th, it is also a third time either in the central verse (II, III, IV) or in the fourth verse (alternation ♂ and
♀).

but sheperd, in the language of pastoral comedies, was also used in English to refer to the poet. And it is not
excluded to see, in the choice of this term, a phonetic rapprochement with the French "I am afraid". The
expression is also used four times at strategic positions of the first and last stanzas. The themes of irresolution
in the face of love and anguish come back behind the light appearance of this song 

The naïve ritual of Valentine's Day, which is the subject of worship in England, becomes for the timid lover a
formidable deadline. But behind the romance addressed to this unlikely "Kate", the poet's irony is heard: far
from being a saving impulse, the most naïve love affair and its passage to the act constitute "a long and
difficult undertaking" where the fear of failure buzzes like "a bee" in the ears of the one who confides: "I suffer
and I watch".

a poor young shepherd is a coy love poem addressed to a mysterious kate and may well be, as
the title suggests, an attempt to create a kind of folk song

links to the lamb before but thzt was when the woman left the man here it is the man who retreats
from the woman, a role reversal

the naivity of the young shepherd and- virginity, ect

5 lines of 5 syllables – the form orangises with the repetition of the first and last line ‘j’ai peur d’un
baiser’ and then totally repeated at the end

Like the shepherd, kate represents a function in the love fable , more the desgination of being real
and precise, we have never had this before, almost makes it seem unreal and insincere the yeux jolis
are hardly descriptive. La platitude

The long traits plae – almost seems sickly or ill

The proper name at the end of the line KATE ryhiminhg with delicate with French pronunciation we
imagine.

The gouaillerie of the poet resides in the suspension points – declaring his love is still under the idea
of a backdoor confession ‘je dois et je n’ose’ correstonds to the
the rite of the lover transfixed in front of his beloved,
but the expression relates quite differently to a public
announcement, more morally burdensome: it is a
question of revealing the true gender of his sexual
identity

at no time is there any mention of a reciprocity of

feelings with the beautiful

the relationship is made admissible in advance and

conforms to the social codes of passion.
- Idea of promise ect 0 the exckamative mode contrutes an emotional response, at once happy
and anxious
- But he might be primised to someone else – a man