She Walks In Beauty Flashcards
Form
Rhyme scheme is ABABAB - enduring nature of beauty and how she’s a balance of different qualities
Regular iambic tetrameter , emphasises consistency and purity of his love
Enjambement shows the overwhelming nature of her beauty
Present tense - eternal beauty
Caesura
Become more common towards the end with his increase in enthusiasm
Structure
Builds in positivity
Constant references to colour imagery
Digresses from physical appearance to inner beauty
Equal length of stanzas shows every aspect of her is equally beautiful
Language
Semantic field of harmony
grace pure serenely soft calm eloquent peace mellowed tender
Juxtaposition of colour imagery
Subverts the readers expectation - usually dark imagery has connotations of peace, but here it is calm and almost mystical
Light imagery antithetical symbolising balance
Corporeal imagery
Followed by metaphysical imagery
Cheek, brow
Individual body parts shows the depth of his attraction
A mind
A heart
First stressed syllables in the line shows their higher importance
like the night
he wouldn’t be able to see her- the beauty is inside?
Dark subverts expectations, to show how she is beauty like no other and he doesn’t want any traditional crap to describe her when she is so authentic
Of cloudless climes
Alliteration emphasises contrast
Imagery
She is the star in the sky
There is a clarity a purity to her beauty
And starry skies
Sibilence emphasise contract
Wondrous tone
mellowed to that tender light
subtle changes in colour imagery create fuller imagery
Which Heaven To gaudy Day denies
In the night she is more beautiful
Juxtaposes the tender imagery before , he hates unnatural beauty or falseness
one shade the more, one ray the less
More antithetical light imagery
She is at the point of perfection, an subtle change would ruin her - superficiality
nameless grace which waves
Enhancement shows the length of her hair
Movement imagery shows that this is not a memory, but a real life experience, gives it a greater sense of truth
‘Nameless’ - can’t be put into words but is inherent
serenely sweet express
Sibilence -> singing
Sweetness and softness
‘Days of goodness spent’
She is a moral person
