She Walks in Beauty Flashcards
Title (She walks in Beauty)
The pronoun ‘she’ could suggest an air of mystery around the woman because he doesn’t know her. She could be anyone, we now know her to be his cousin who was recently widowed. The verb ‘walks’ implies that everything about her is beautiful. it is not just her physical appearance but he admires her inner beauty as well.
Twilight (She walks in Beauty)
“Like the night”
Byron could use the simile ‘like the night’ to symbolise that this woman is different to all other woman he has admired. Byron breaks the ordinary conventions of romantic poetry by emphasising how attractive her darkness is For example, Shakespeare compares someone to ‘a summer’s day’
The Sky (She walks in Beauty)
“Of cloudless climes and starry skies”
The imagery used here is romantic and is mysterious just like the woman he is describing. Byron could be suggesting she is like the stars in the sky and both lighting up the darkness and unobtainable, which could further highlight the distance between them (petrarchen love).
Oxymoron (She walks in Beauty)
“dark and bright”
Byron uses the contrast of “dark and bright” throughout the poem. this could suggest that both ‘dark’ and ‘bright’ come together in this woman to create perfection and balance much like the yin and yang in Chinese culture.
Teen Titans Go (She walks in Beauty)
“raven tress”
The adjective ‘raven’ could suggest an element of danger about the woman. Byron is also breaking conventions of the sereotypical sense of beauty, showing the appeal and intrigue of such darkness and mystery.
Inner beauty (She walks in Beauty)
“Where thoughts serenely” and “How pure”
Byron is admiring not only her physical appearances but her ‘inner beauty’. Her ‘sweet’ thoughts match her external beauty. Words like ‘serenely’ and ‘pure’ suggest her to be divine.
Physical beauty near the end (She walks in Beauty)
“The smiles that win”
In this stanza, Byron is zooming into specific details of her face. ‘The smiles that win
Romance (She walks in Beauty)
“Love”
There are many interpretations for why Byron mentions ‘love’ in the last line. It could suggest that he is merely infactuated or only physically attracted to her and not actually in ‘love’. However, it could suggest that by writing the poem in the order he does shows the process of falling in ‘love’ with someone and he realises at the end that he does love her which is signified by the exclamation at the end of the stanza.
