Poetry Anthology Flashcards
She Walks in Beauty - Introduction
> “She Walks in Beauty” is a short lyrical poem in iambic tetrameter written in 1813 by Lord Byron.
The beauty of the woman the speaker describes is in both her external appearance and her inner goodness.
the poet never actually declares that love. He concentrates on the subject’s captivating attractiveness and purity.
Romanticism had many key features among which were: a recognition of the influence of the senses and of personal emotion, that the heart (emotion) is considered more powerful than the head (logic/reason), an understanding of the deep power of the natural world. All of these are features of Byron’s poem.
She Walks in Beauty - Ideas
> it is not all about outward appearances. The early description of her physical beauty is matched by the description of her inner beauty or ‘goodness’ towards the end of the poem.
A sense of wonder: the speaker’s sense of wonder is not directly expressed but comes from the nature of the comparisons he makes between the woman and aspects of the natural world. ‘She walks in beauty, like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies’ . In the opening two lines the poet uses a simile to compare the subject’s beauty to something vast, uncontained and almost unimaginable.
Byron demonstrates the power of the woman’s beauty because the whole poem is focused exclusively on this one person. We are not told anything factual about the woman. She therefore has a sense of mystery about her which enhances her attractiveness. Byron uses strong contrasting images of light and darkness to convey extremes of emotion.
She Walks in Beauty - Structure
> The poem was originally published as part of a collection called Hebrew Melodies in April 1815 and was intended to be set to music of a religious nature. This would have highlighted the reverence in which the poet holds the subject as he gazes at her in wonder.
three stanzas, each consisting of six lines.
The rhyme scheme is regular - ‘night’ + ‘bright’, ‘skies+eyes’.
rhythm of the poem is highly regular. This consistent rhythm emphasises the regularity of the subject’s walk but also her faultless perfection.
enjambment. It is almost as though the speaker cannot pause for breath in trying to tell the reader about how beautiful this woman is. ‘tender light/ Which Heaven to gaudy day denies’
Iambic Tetrameter throughout is similar to hymns, showing praise
sibilance, creating a smooth gliding effect, almost musical. - ‘serenely sweet express’
She Walks in Beauty - Language
> Byron avoids conventional symbols to describe the subject’s beauty. It is a less conventional appearance that is described. ‘the nameless grace/ Which waves in every raven tress’. The woman is a raven-haired beauty. The word ‘raven’ perhaps gives her a darker aspect as it is traditionally associated with a bird of bad omen. >‘And all that’s best of dark and bright/ Meet in her aspect and her eyes’. The best features of light and its antithesis (opposite), darkness, meet to form something even greater in the subject’s extraordinary beauty. It is especially noticeable in her eyes.
The poet uses rich and varied language which draws attention to itself through literary devices such as alliteration and assonance. For instance, in the first stanza there are two examples of alliteration in the second line (‘Of cloudless climes and starry skies’) while a pattern of assonance weaves around this (the ‘i’ sounds of: ‘night’, ‘climes’, ‘skies’, ‘bright’, ‘eyes’, ‘light’ and ‘denies’). All but one of these words is brought to the reader’s attention by being placed at the ends of the lines.
-Antithesis is used on a number of occasions eg ‘One shade the more, one ray the less’. In this line ‘shade’ is contrasted with ‘ray’ and ‘more’ with ‘less’. This repeated use of opposites may highlight the confusion in the speaker’s mind as he tries to come to terms with trying to describe the woman’s overpowering attractiveness something which is basically beyond words .
