She Walks In Beauty

Question 1

Who wrote this poem

Answer 1

Lord Byron

Question 2

What is the structure of the poem

Answer 2

• ABABAB rhyme scheme
• Third person
• Direct address
• Lyric poem

Question 3

Give some context of the writer

Answer 3

• Poet and politician
• Romantic literary poet
• popular and influential
• Died while fighting
• Adventurous and unconventional
• Celebrity Status

Question 4

What is the context of the poem

Answer 4

• Infatuation
• Love-struck awe
• Display of obsessive love and wonder
• Real, palpable connection
• Distant relative

Question 5

What are the perspectives of the poem

Answer 5

• Lyric poem, intended to be set to music
• Thoughts and feelings
• Unnamed man
• No explicit relation to the woman
• Physical beauty
• Impossible beauty
• no suggestion of romance
• Deep affection is portrayed
• Admiration, idolisation and awe, purity and innocence
• Abstract senses
• Her features recalls the blazon poems of the Elizabethan age, a poetry genre which is set out to glorify and describe a lovers appearance

Question 6

How is the theme of love explored in this poem ?

Answer 6

• A quintessential romantic poem
• Sense of detachment
• Unattainable love
• aspiration or intention of approaching her
• Without entitlement or expectation of romance or courtship
• Love for aesthetic
• deep love of beauty, purity and innocence

Question 7

How is the theme beauty and harmony explored in this poem

Answer 7

• female beauty
• Use of poetic devices
• Physical beauty is explored through a series of harmonious contrasts
• juxtaposition of her dark hair, ‘her raven tresses’ to her fair and bright face.
• Her beauty and purity is almost biblical, ‘tender light’, ‘softly lightens’, harmonious convergence between light and dark.
• Her beauty invokes religious imagery, ‘nameless grace’, perhaps referring to the three goddesses of beauty within Greek mythology
• delicate pastoral comparisons to the skies, dark and bright suggests that she beautifies all that surrounds her
• assonance in the second stanza suggest how complex her beauty is

Question 8

Give the purpose of the structure of the poem

Answer 8

• Three stanzas, each six lines long: poetic form for hymns reflects religious imagery
• Written in iambic tetrameter
• Strict structure and categorization of the speakers words suggests deep and complex thoughts and feelings measured in a deliberate way
• trochaic in line 4 suppose harmonious opposing forces and intersect in the woman’s eyes

Question 9

What is the function of the mixture of enjambment and caesura in this poem

Answer 9

reflects harmony and perfection but also conveys juxtaposition between binary forces mentioned in the poem. It could also be interpreted as the speakers struggle or hesitation to describe his feelings and the woman’s beauty

Question 10

What figure of speech is used in the following sentences and state its purpose
“like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies”

Answer 10

• Simile
• It is used to illustrate the woman’s beauty

Question 11

What figure of speech is used in the following sentences and state its purpose
“Day denies”, “which waves”, “serenely sweet”, “dear….dwelling place”

Answer 11

• Alliteration
• Adds a feel of musicality, reflecting the lyrical nature of the poem

Question 12

What figure of speech is used in the following sentence and state its purpose
“thoughts serenely sweet express”

Answer 12

• Sibilance
• Gives texture and adds to sense of harmony in the poem

Question 13

What figure of speech is used in the following sentence and state its purpose
“shade” and “rays”

Answer 13

• Juxtaposition
• creates intricate balance in the woman’s beauty
• Powerful beauty that reconciles both light and dark

Question 14

What quotations in this poem parallel the great Gatsby?

Answer 14

• “thoughts serenely sweet express how pure, how dear their dwelling-place”
• “that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” Chapter 1
• “All that’s best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes”
• “As cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire” chapter 1

Question 15

What are the similarities and differences between this poem and the flea

Answer 15

• “nameless grace”, “selfe murder”
• “which heaven to gaudy day denies”, “sacrilege”
• “how pure, how dear their dwelling-place”, “blood of imagery”
• Both poems use religious imagery; this poem uses it to symbolize heavenly beauty while the flea conveys a sacred union through physical intimacy

Question 16

What are the similarities and differences between this poem and Whoso list to hunt

Answer 16

Similarities
- In both poems, the speaker is captivated by a woman, spell- bound
- Both poems communicate a sense of impossibility. In this poem, the woman is impossibly beautiful. In whoso the speaker communicates unattainable love

Differences
- In this poem, the speaker makes no attempt to court the woman. In Whoso the speaker expresses how his frustrated desire led to his desperation
- In this poem, there is no information on the speaker. In whoso, the focus is on the speakers feelings and how the woman and the pursuit of her made them feel ‘sore’, ‘wearied’ and ‘fainting’

Question 17

What are the similarities and differences between this poem and To his coy mistress

Answer 17

Similarities
- Both poems provide descriptions of the beauty of their lover or object of affection

Differences
- ‘To his coy mistress’ is sexually suggestive, typical of blazon poetry. To persuade the woman before its too late
- In this poem, the speaker only takes appreciation the woman’s moral virtue and inner beauty