“She walks in Beauty”

1    She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

5    Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

10      Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear, their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, so eloquent,

15   The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

(Information taken from: http://gale.cengage.com/free_resources/poets/poems/shewalks.htm Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997 )

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR:

Byron was born in 1788 in London to John Byron and Catherine Gordon, a descendant of a Scottish noble family. He was born with a clubbed foot, with which he suffered throughout his life. Byron’s father had married his mother for her money, which he soon squandered. He fled to France, where he died in 1791. When Byron was a year old, he and his mother moved to Aberdeen, Scotland, and Byron spent his childhood there. Upon the death of his great uncle in 1798, Byron became the sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale and inherited the ancestral home, Newstead Abbey in Nottingham. He attended Harrow School from 1801 to 1805 and then Trinity College at Cambridge University until 1808, when he received a master’s degree. Byron’s first publication was a collection of poems, “Fugitive Pieces” (1807). When he turned twenty-one in 1809, Byron was entitled to a seat in the House of Lords, and he attended several sessions of Parliament that year. Byron recorded his experiences in poetic form in several works, most importantly in Childe Harold’s Primage (1812-18). The publications of the two first cantos of Childe Harold in 1812 met with great acclaim, and Byron was hailed in literacy circles. Around this time he engaged in a tempestuous affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, who characterized Byron as “mad --- bad --- and dangerous to know”.
Throughout his life Byron conducted numerous affairs and fathered several illegitimate children. Byron married Annabella Milbanke in 1815, with whom he had a daughter, Augusta Ada. Around this time Byron wrote “She walks in Beauty”, the first of several poems to be set to Jewish tunes from the synagogue by Isaac Natham, which were published as Hebrew Melodies. (Information taken from: http://aulavirtual.uv.es/dotlrn/classes/c006/14217/c08c006a14217gA/wp-slim/display/24923561/24923898.wimpy

Byron is said to have written “She walks in Beauty” after meeting his cousin Lady Anne Wilmot Horton in black morning clothes, which, when combined with her pale skin and “raven tresses” (black hair), reminded him of stars and the night. The poem claims this lovely outer appearance as a sign of her inner beauty and purity. It was a popular theme of Renaissance and Medieval poetry. (Information taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_walks_in_beauty)

Byron's poetic production

Byron’s poetry expresses its strength and masculinity. Trenchantly witty, he used unflowery and colloquial language in many poems, such as Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos. His talent for drama was expressed in the vibrantly galloping rhythms of The Destruction of Sennacherib. However, poems such as When We Two Parted and So We’ll Go No More A-Roving express strong feelings in simple and touching language. He made little use of imagery and did not aspire to write of things beyond this world; the Victorian critic John Ruskin wrote of him that he spoke only of what he had seen and known; and spoke without exaggeration, without mystery, without enmity, and without mercy. Moreover, Byron exercised a marked influence on Continental literature and art, and his reputation as poet is higher in many European countries than in Britain or America, although not as high as in his time.

(Information taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron#Poetic_works)

His most important works are:

(Information taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron#Major_works)

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS:

The poem is based on the description of a woman, who has been identified as Mrs. Robert John Wilmot, Lord Byron’s cousin’s wife. He met this woman in 1814, some months after having met and married to her first wife Ann Milbanke. It was in a party celebrated by Lady Sitwell. Throughout the poem we see that the author describes that woman with numerous qualities that Byron considers to be alive on her.

The author introduces the verb “to walk” at the beginning as in the title. This verb has connotations of making progress, movement and also drawing on. I think that Byron uses that verb to introduce the reader into poem as if it was a moment in progress. Besides that, we can see that the author is writing about a woman. He uses the personal pronoun “she”, so the reader can easily imagine the woman with the description he makes about her appearance. To do that, Byron makes an opposition of words, like “dark” and “bright” or “shade” and “ray”. The woman he writes about has these oppositions in herself. Apart from doing that, first he shows the darkness as in “she walks in beauty, like the night”, which I think that it means that the woman is there but it is too dark to see her. But it continues and the poem lets the reader see the woman in a night “of cloudless climes and starry skies”. Those two lines bring together the opposition I mentioned before and then the woman contains the best of both different things as in “and all that’s best of dark and bright”. In other words, Byron writes about everything good about what she has of bright, which is a good thing and, moreover, even darkness is a negative feature, she shows the best of it. So the woman is a mixing of light and darkness, good and bad things. That is shown also in the fourth line, where Byron introduces the meeting of that opposition in the woman (“and all that’s best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes”). Here it seems that the author endows her with maturity and beauty that, at the end of the poem, will be opposite because of the dualism of the woman. Byron compares her with the day’s light but it is not as beautiful as the light she gives off. The mixing of darkness and brightness mellows the light that it seems to please Byron (“One shade the more, one ray the less, had half impaired the nameless grace which waves in every raven tress, or softly lightens o'er her face”). Here we can see a double opposition, “shade-ray” and “more-less” (“One shade the more, one ray the less”). And, at the same time, Byron argues that the woman needs to be as dark as bright. She needs both things to be pure because if any part decreases, she wouldn’t be as beautiful as she is now, she would be half impaired.

Throughout the last stanza, Byron continues describing that beautiful woman physically (“And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, so soft, so calm, so eloquent”), and also her soul from the fifteenth line to the end (“The smiles that win, the tints that glow but tell of days in goodness spent, a mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent!”). Here we can also see a confrontation of being mature or innocent depending of the beauty. And, at the same time, Byron counters “mind” with “heart”, where it seems to be a fight between thoughts and feelings.

Throughout the whole poem I have realized that Byron writes about physical and moral aspects. He shows the reader a woman full of oppositions which provide the reader a more realistic image of the woman he describes. Byron contrast heart with mind, experience with innocence and physical with spiritual aspects. I do not really know if it is a love poem because Byron does not mention anything about his love, but at the same time it is so beautiful and that theme, beauty, is very common in the Romanticism, where feelings are emphasized intuition over reason. But, although Byron falls chronologically into the period most commonly associated with Romantic poetry, much of his work looks back to the satiric tradition of Pope and Dryden. (Information taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron#Beginning_of_poetic_career )

BIBLIOGRAPHY

· http://gale.cengage.com/free_resources/poets/poems/shewalks.htm Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997.

· http://aulavirtual.uv.es/dotlrn/classes/c006/14217/c08c006a14217gA/wp-slim/display/24923561/24923898.wimpy - http://gale.cengage.com/free_resources/poets/bio/byron_l.htm Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale.

· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_walks_in_beauty This page was last modified 18:02, 19 December 2007.

· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron#Poetic_works & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron#Major_works & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron#Beginning_of_poetic_career This page was last modified 14:54, 10 January 2008.