Lord Byron wrote this poem in first person of plural

LORD BYRON

Solitude

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

http://www.online-literature.com/byron/696/

Lord Byron wrote this poem in the first person plural. In my opinion, Lord Byron wrote in this person to create the effect that he refered to the human being.

This poet belongs of the romanticism period, we can observe it in his emphatize on the emotions and his descriptions of the nature.

In the poem, the author describes the emotion of solitude: first, the poet writes that when you are alone in nature, you aren’t in solitude, and he describes some situations in nature. On the other hand, he says that when you are with a lot of people but noone special, that is when you are really in solitude.

I think that Lord Byron shows an attitude to nature of admiration and he thinks that we have reception when we are in the nature, because in the nature, we aren’t in solitude. Nature accompany us.

In the first stanza, Lord Byron introduced us to the beautiful nature, the forest, the mountains, the falls and the rivers...Man hasn’t this beauty, the author says: “and mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been”. The first that you think when you read this, is in the feeling of solitude, but the poet continues on to disprove that it isn’t exactly solitude: this is experience the nature.

Nature acompany us, this is the reason why Lord Byron says in his poem: “converse with Nature’s charms”, and there is an image here: the personification of Nature’s charms, because he says that you can speak with them. It means that, if you are alone in the nature, you aren’t in solitude because you can think about yourself, human existence, human spiritually or about other living things. In this sense, this is not solitude.

On the other hand, the second stanza is in the context of the city (in my opinion). In a place where there is bustle, crowd, everyone is in a hurry: “But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men”.

Lord Byron refers to senses “To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,” to describe the experiences felt by someone standing alone in a large crowd (“the shock of men”). The author wants to say that if you haven’t friends, family...in that moment is when you are really alone, in solitude. All persons need the advice, the affection, the love of other people.

If nobody cares about a person and the person do not care about anyone else, this is the true meaning of solitude; the absence of affection souls in a whole world of men.

I think it is clear what is the main idea of the poem: solitude, which is the tittle too. When are you in solitude, and when not?

There is a contrast when you read the beginning of the poem, because you read the tittle, and you are waiting for a sad poem, and maybe even boring, telling us the sadness of solitude or the absence of somebody. But, when you begin to read the poem, you imagine the wonderful of the nature that describes Lord Byron, and it’s completely different as what you were waiting.

In my opinion, the meaning of the poem is that you should love all as you can, because if you don’t love and anyone loves you, you will be alone in your life. You can go to the forest, for example, and maybe you don’t feel alone, but if you haven’t someone that loves you...you are really alone.

The poem’s structure is divided in two stanzas, of nine verses each one, and uses old english compared with today’s language.

In conclusion, Lord Byron’s poem is, in my opinion, very beautiful, because it treats an interesting theme. The solitude is one of the concerns that most people have: a lot of people are scared with the idea of being alone in their deathbed or in their lives, to be an old person and live completely alone...

But, at the same time, I think that it is a beatiful poem because it can make people think about how to live their lives, how can do this life better and how is the person with the other persons in this moment: how speaks to them and if the person answers to the others rudely or not.

We should address the other with education and well, because if we don’t do this, we will be in solitude...

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Academic year 2005-06 (may 2006)

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