|
SHE
WALKS IN BEAUTY By
Lord Byron She
walks in Beauty, like the night
One
shade the more, one ray the less,
And
on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
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TO
JANE By
Percy Bysshe Shelley The
keen stars were twinkling
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“She
walks in beauty” from:<(URL:
http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/She_Walks_In.htm
)>
“To
Jane” from:
<(
URL: http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=3099&poem=15015)>
The
two poems that I am going to compare are “She walks in Beauty” by Lord
Byron and “To Jane” by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The common feature that those poems have is that both deal with woman theme;
both authors describe woman but from a different perspective. We know that
Byron and Shelley write for a woman because in the first case Byron does
not use any personal name but he uses the personal pronoun “She” to refer
to her; the author does not name her in any moment in the poem. In the
contrast Shelley starts the poem in the title with a female name “Jane”
that is the protagonist of the poem. In the first poem when Byron refers
to “She” he is referring to his cousin Mrs. Wilmot, whom he met at a party
in a mourning dress of spangled black. But it is not the same in Shelley’s
one because his “Jane” and her brother Edward were friends of the Shelleys
at
In
the poems both authors play with light in the darkness. The authors situate
the poems in a dark environment; lines 1 to 3 in Byron’s poem and lines
1 and 2 in Shelley’s poem. But is the woman who gives the light, colour
and life to this darkness. For example in Byron’s poem the text deals with
image that in this world of darkness the woman represents the light with
her “aspect, her eyes” etc, line 4. But in Shelley’s poem the author says
that Jane with her voice and music represents the light between the darkness
of the sky.
Despite
the fact that both poets give a very positive vision about the women, they
treat that vision from a different perspective. Although both poets arrive
to the same conclusion; Lord Byron presents us the woman like an angel.
He only uses adjectives and expressions to describe her purity and innocence:
“…softly lightens over her face” line 10,
“How pure, how dear their dwelling place” line12, also lines 15-16, and
specially, the final conclusion which gives us the real impression that
the author has about the woman in the poem: “A heart whose love is innocent”
line 18. Shelley has also a positive vision about woman, for Shelley this
woman is like a “music muse” whose sound and voice are like a celestial
music that bring peace and calm. To describe her sensibilityand
also her purity Shelley uses adjectives like “sweet” line 5, “soft” line
7, “your voice most tender” line 10 etc. The poet uses these adjectives
but not for the woman directly because firstly Shelley wants to create
a sweet and a pure environment; he calls “sweet notes”, “moon’s soft splendour”
etc. In the end of the poem the author summarize the three principal aspects
which are important in the poem “music and moonlight
and feeling are one” lines 23 and 24.
In
both poems the question of time is important because for example in Lord
Byron’s poem the author is telling in present, he is describing the woman
at the moment. Since the start “She was in beauty” to the end the author
writes in a present tense. But on the contrary in Shelley’s poem is in
past tense. The author writes a past fact like it had happened a lot time
before.
Other
important point that poems don’t have in common is that each author represents
his own vision of the woman from a different way. On
the one hand Lord Byron in his poem present
us the woman just referring to what he is contemplating; her eyes (line
4), her face (lines 10, 13) her smiles (line 15) etc and then he writes
about what that image evokes to him, but he does not write about any action.
On the other hand Shelley is based on an act, the act of playing music.
He does not take into account the physical aspects as Byron,
he is only referring to the light that woman’s music provokes in the author.
This author creates a more sentimental description than Lord Byron.
In
my opinion the contrast of these poems has surprised me very much because
I don’t think that two simple poems said so many things. Really is impressive
how two poems which apparently talk about the same thing, they can do this
in different ways. Because Shelley was also talking about a woman but he
makes it through the music act and Lord Byron by the physical appearance
mainly. Then both poets are able to give the impression that the women
that they are describing are beyond of the physical nature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Percy Bysshe
Shelley- To a Jane, www.rpo.library.utoronto.ca,
Ed, M. T. Wilson, last visited 9th August 2006. <(http://www.rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1916.html)>