TWO WAYS OF APPRECIATING FEMALE BEAUTY

A comparative analysis of Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty” and Robert Browning’s poem “A Pretty Woman”

1. Introduction

The Victorian era contributed with several improvements and changes to literature and poetry; mainly in the attitude and personal involvement of the poets towards their poems, but also in the way that society received their texts as readers.[3] Seeing that, it is obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between the Romantic and the Victorian poetry. In order to fully understand the cause of changes in they way that society perceived art, we must remark some characteristics of both periods of English History:

The Romantic period was shaped by a multitude of political, social, and economic changes. Many writers of the period were aware of a pervasive intellectual and imaginative climate, which some called “the spirit of the age.”  This spirit was linked to both the politics of the French Revolution and religious apocalypticism… The final defeat of the French emperor Napoleon in 1815 ushered in a period of harsh, repressive measures in England… Wordsworth and Coleridge’s sense of the emancipatory opportunities brought in by the new historical moment was expressed in their Lyrical Ballads (1798), which revolutionized the theory and practice of poetry.  Wordsworth influentially located the source of a poem not in outer nature but in the psychology and emotions of the individual poet.  In keeping with the view that poetry emphasizes the poet’s feelings, the lyric became a major Romantic form. (The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Romanticism) [4]

The Victorian era was a period of dramatic change that brought England to its highest point of development as a world power... England experienced an enormous increase in wealth, but rapid and unregulated industrialization brought a host of social and economic problems… The Church of England had evolved into three major divisions, with conflicting beliefs about religious practice. There were also rationalist challenges to religion from philosophy (especially Utilitarianism) and science (especially biology and geology)… Literacy increased significantly in the period… Victorian novels seek to represent a large and comprehensive social world, constructing a tension between social conditions and the aspirations of the hero or heroine.  Writing in the shadow of Romanticism, the Victorians developed a poetry of mood and character.  Victorian poetry tends to be pictorial, and often uses sound to convey meaning. (The Norton Anthology Of English Literature. Victorian Era) .[5]

This analysis will try to find out those differences, but also to find the point of connection between those literary periods. And with this purpose, we have taken as examples the poem “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron and “A Pretty Woman” by Robert Browning; both of them with a similar topic, the feminine beauty.

On the one hand we have Lord Byron. We know that Lord Byron’s life and actions were considered as scandalous by the society of his time because of Byron’s sense of freedom and individuality. He, like the rest of the romantic poets, didn’t feel comfortable with his society; however, he had a hate-love relationship with his readers. His poems and his own life were considered as immoral because readers used to identify him with the gloomy and attractive man of his texts; but for the same reason, he looked as a person who needed to be saved.[6] That personality of misunderstood and solitary man who, at the same time showed in this poems the “capacity for devotion, tenderness, and ruthless as well as an elevated quality of friendship”, turned him in some kind of hero. Indeed, his poetical corpus is made of “extreme” poems. “These extremes are stylistic, erotic, satirical, or the puffery of the sublime…comedy and the frantic melancholy and despair of the Romantic.”[7]

“She Walks in Beauty” belongs to those tender poems written by Lord Byron in his ‘sublime’ moments, where the beauty of a lady can be gracefully compared to heaven’s magnificence.

On the other hand, Robert Browning was a well-accepted and adapted man of his era; someone who, like the most of the Victorian writers, “achieved rapprochement with their audience by compromising with the middle-class morality of the time”.[8] But in this case, his involvement in the culture and moral costumes of his time gave a stronger intentionality to his works. That happened because, to avoid being recognized in his poems, he used to give an ‘objective’ voice to his characters surrounding them by a recognizable background of his time and reflecting a huge variety of behaviours. In that way, readers didn’t identify those words and actions with the poet. The poems were taken as mere lyric and as well, judged it by its content.[9]

The advertisement to the original Dramatic Lyrics in 1842 declares: "Such poems as the following come properly enough, I suppose, under the head of 'Dramatic Pieces;' being, though for the most part Lyric in expression, always Dramatic in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine."( The Victorian Web. Books. The Alien Vision of Victorian Poetry By E. D. Johnson ) [10]

Those dramatic monologues can be understood as a covered way to reflect the poet's opposition to existing values.

“A Pretty Woman” is a good example of this, because it is impossible to affirm that it is Browning himself who is talking or if it is just another character giving his opinion about women.

2. Individual analysis of Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty”

2.1 Formal aspects

“She Walks in Beauty” has three stanzas made of six lines (sestet). Each line follows a constant pattern of eight syllables. The meter of all the stanzas is made of four foot per line, which means we are dealing with iambic tetrameters. Also anaphors and alliteration in some clauses give the poem a regular metrical rhythm.

About the rhyme we can say that the scheme is ABABAB – CDCDCD - EFEFEF, with some imperfect rhymes like ‘eloquent’ - ‘spent’ – ‘innocent’ (lines 14, 16 and 18) or even eye rhymes like ‘brow’ - ‘glow’ (lines 13 and 15).

2.2 Analysis

The title of this poem gives us a very important clue about what moved the poet to write about ‘She’. Saying that ‘she walks in beauty’ could mean that the beauty surrounds the lady everywhere she goes, as she walks. Just by reading the title, we can imagine that the main topic of the poem is the beautifulness of a woman. The whole text is a description of the characteristics that had amazed the poet. So the main ideas we find are those that the author relate with beauty, like nature, love, purity and innocence. And all these thoughts are expressed in three thematic stanzas.[11]

In the first stanza, he seems to compare the lady’s beauty with natural phenomena such as ‘the night’ (line 1), ‘climes’, ‘skies’ (line 2), ‘light’ (line 5) and ‘heaven’ (line 6). The poet even introduce a pathetic fallacy in the simile between ‘She’ and ‘the night’ (line 1) because only human beings can walk. We find another pathetic fallacy when he says that ‘heaven’ is able to deny (line 6). The writer describes the nature that is compared to her beauty always in positive terms like ‘cloudless climes’, ‘starry skies’ (line 2) and ‘tender light’ (line 5). He also reflects her beautiful ‘aspect’ and ‘eyes’ as a perfect balance between ‘dark’ and bright’ (line 3). The rhythm of the stanza is given by several alliterations like ‘cl-oudless’ ‘cl-imes’ or ‘s-tarry’ ‘s-kies’ (line 2).

In the second stanza the poet continues describing the perfect balance of her physical ‘grace’ (line 8), opposing, as he did above with ‘dark’ and ‘bright’ (line 3), ‘shade’ and ‘ray’ (line 7) and also with terms that reflect gentleness like ‘softly’ (line 10).  But not only her aspect is graceful; her thoughts are as well ‘serenely’ and ‘sweet’ (line 11). Thanks to these we can understand that the girl is surrounded by a ‘pure’ (line 12) beauty. To give fluency to his description, the poet uses here two anaphors: ‘one shade’ ‘one ray’ (line 7) and ‘how pure’ ‘how dear’ (line 12).

In the third stanza he goes on talking about the tenderness of her face like her ‘cheek’ and her ‘brow’ (line 13) which are, in words of the poet, ‘soft’ and ‘calm’ (line 14). Here we find another pathetic fallacy because he confers the ‘cheek’ a human capacity of being ‘eloquent’ (line14). But in this stanza he also seems to centre his attention on her actions and on the reactions that her pure beauty causes. She ‘wins’ ‘smiles’ (line 15), but that happens because her beauty is not only superficial; her beauty comes from her inside, from the ‘peace’ of her ‘mind’ (line 17) and the innocence of her loving ‘heart’ (line 18). Here we find again some anaphors like ‘and on’ ‘and over’ (line 13), ‘so soft’ ‘so calm’ (line 14), ‘that win’ ‘that glow’ (line 15), ‘a mind’ ‘a heart’ (lines 17 and 18).

3. Individual analysis of Robert Browning’s poem “A Pretty Woman”

3.1 Formal aspects

“A Pretty Woman” is a dramatic lyric and has eighteen stanzas made of four lines (quatrain). The number of syllables per line does not follow a strict pattern, so the first and last lines of the stanzas usually have between eight and nine syllables, but the second and third lines always have four syllables. Because of these variations, its meter is made of an alternation of four-foot and two-foot lines; which means we have iambic tetrameter in the first and fourth lines and a trochee dimeter in the second and third lines of each stanza. About the rhyme we can say that the scheme is ABBA (enclosed rhyme), with some eye rhymes like ‘eye’ - ‘dewy’ (lines 2 and 3) and ‘rose’ – ‘morose’ (lines 65 and 68). Its rhythm is also given by the constant presence of antistrophes, isocolons and alliterations.

3.2 Analysis

The title of this poem make us believe that we are going to read a description of a pretty woman, but the poem deals with much more than that. In the poem, a faceless voice (probably of a man) actually talks about the forced relationship between liking and love. So the main ideas we are going to find are related to beauty; like women-men relationships, love and liking. And all these thoughts are expressed in stanzas that can be grouped into four parts that structure the poem.

In the first part, which corresponds to the first stanza, we find a description of a pretty woman. For the man who describes the woman, her beauty is determined by her ‘hair’ (line 1) , her ‘eyes’ (line 2) and her attitude. So he uses positive adjectives with those elements like ‘blue’, ‘dear’ and ‘dewy’ for her ‘eye’ (lines 2 and 3) and ‘fawn-skin-dappled’ for her ‘hair (line). To describe with exactitude her hair, the man uses zoomorphism, applying to her hair the characteristics of an animal. Here we find an antistrophe in the repetition of the ending ‘hers’ (lines 1 and 4).

The second part goes from the second to the seventh stanza. Here, he describes the woman as unreachable. He claims that is she the one who infatuates with men (‘you like us for a glance’ (line 9), ‘whatever the chance’ (line 12)), so she let them believe they have her (‘and in turn we make you ours, we say’ (line 13)) which make them happy; and such happiness is reflected by terms like ‘sing’ and ‘say’ (line 18), ‘watch’ and ‘pray’ (line 19), ‘boast’ (line 20). But when they ask her for love, she rejects them (‘but for loving, why, would you not’ (line 21)). So they realize that they cannot expect anything else from her beauty (‘be its beauty its sole duty (lines 26 and 27)).

We can see three verbs related to the desire of men to have her: ‘enfold’ (line 6), ‘hold’ (line 7) and ‘keep’ (line 8) and consequently with their desire to be loved by her: ‘prayed’ (line 22) ‘paid’ and ‘brayed’ (line 23). It is also interesting to realize what men make theirs about the woman is her beautiful aspect (‘youth’ (line 14), ‘eyes’, ‘mouth’ (line 15), ‘face’ (line 16)).

In this part the antistrophes are ‘sweet’ (lines 5, 8, 21 and 24), ‘know’ (lines 9 and 12), ‘say’ (lines 13 and 16), ‘there’ (lines 25 and 28); ‘you’ (lines 6, 7, 22 and 23), ‘sake’ (lines 10 and 11), ‘too’ (lines 14 and 15) and ‘for’ (lines 18 and 19). Moreover, there are some alliterations like ‘y-ou’ ‘y-outh’ (line 14) and ‘s-ing’ ‘s-ay’ (line 18). An we can also see that all two mid-lines of the stanzas have an isocolon scheme.

The third part goes from the eighth to the seventeenth stanza. In this part the man pretends solve the like-love problem. With that purpose, he uses some examples to show that there is no need of connection between love and liking, as there is no need of connection between ‘beauty’ and ‘money’ (line 37), or suicide in the case of the ‘fly-king’ (line 40). He supports his idea saying that probably if love would grow out of liking (‘if love grew there’ (line 42)), the magic of beauty would disappear (‘undo there al that breaks the cheek to dimples’ (44)). He adds that that beauty is perfect as it is (‘since not all addition perfects aye’ (line 48)) and forcing it into love could destroy it (‘would you mend it and so end it?’ (line 46). He uses simile to represent these words, comparing the beauty to a light should not be ‘burned up’ (line 53) because it would stop ‘kindling the place’ (line 56).

But there are men who prefer to suffer (‘kiss away one’s soul’ (line 57)) pretending to love her (‘your love-fancies’ (line 58). To illustrate the mistake on those actions, he compares the pretty woman to a ‘rose’ (line 61) and the men who pretend to find love to a ‘craftsman’ (line 61) who do its best to ‘grace’ (line 61) the rose with ‘precious metals’ (line 66) and ‘rubies’ (line 65) when the final destiny of her is to end up ‘locked’ with and ‘old king’ (line 68).

In this part the antistrophes are ‘there’ (lines 29, 32, 42 and 43) , ‘sweet’ (lines 41 and 44), ‘perhaps’ (lines 49 and 52), ‘once’ (lines 53 and 56), ‘her’ (lines 57 and 60), ‘rose’ (lines 61 and 64); ‘it’ (lines46 and 47), ‘flower’ (lines 62 and 63). Again, most of the mid-lines have an isocolon scheme. 

The fourth and last part corresponds with the eighteenth stanza. He continues with the allegory of the rose (‘then how to grace a rose’ (line 69) but here he gives the conclusion of his ideas and arguments, which had lead him to advise the rest of the men to just appreciate a woman’s beauty with the senses (talking about the rose: ‘smell, kiss, wear it’ (line72) , and then let her go (‘leave it, rather’ (line 70), ‘throw away’ (line 72). Here we just find antistrophe in ‘way’ (lines 69 and 72).

4. Comparative Analysis: Two Ways of Appreciating Female Beauty

We have seen throughout the individual analysis of the poems that, even though both were talking about beauty, Byron’s poem tends to be more expressive; while Browning’s poem seemed more pragmatic. These differences are logic if we take into account to which moment and period they belonged, and the motifs that moved the poets to write them.

“She Walks in Beauty” was written by Byron during the Romantic period. It is thought that he wrote the poem inspired by the pure beauty of Lady Wilmot Horton, his cousin.[12]

“A Pretty Woman” was written by Browning during the Victorian Era. It was part of his collection of dramatic lyrics, which means that everything is made up: the pretty woman, the man who describes her, the men that are advised by him, the whole situation.

 This information could help us understand why the way of appreciating beauty in both poems is so different. It is because Byron was talking about someone who he was fond of; in consequence, there was a personal implication in his words, an expression of his own feelings, and his romantic tendencies make him easy to compare beauty with nature. On the contrary, Browning was making the woman up, as well as the man’s voice who describes her, so there was no personal involvement at all; and his Victorian style is well reflected in the intentions of the man of the poem, who is not expressing his emotions, but whose intention is to help other men; which is a trace of the Victorian sociability.

The intention of the poems also conditioned their formal aspects. For example, Byron’s poem didn’t need to be longer, because his emotional explanation of the lady’s beauty was a mere description, so he was not looking for any reaction. For the same reason, its three-part structure fits with what the writer needed. But Browning’s character do wanted to get a reaction, so he made a long argumentation. That is why the extension of this dramatic lyric is much longer, which forces the division into several thematic parts for its structure. Also the rhyme pattern in both poems is different; nevertheless both poems have a very constant and clear rhythm thanks to anaphors, parallelisms, alliteration and antistrophes.

While analysing individually both poems, it caught our attention the parts of the woman that were related to beauty. In “She Walks in Beauty”, a lady’s beauty was reflected in her ‘eyes’ (line 4), ‘face’ (line 10), ‘cheek’, ‘brow’ (line 13), ‘mind’ (line 17) and ‘heart’ (line 18). In Browning’s poem the pretty woman showed her beauty in her ‘hair’ (line 1), ‘eyes’ (line 2 and 15), ‘mouth’ (line 15), ‘face’ (line 15), ‘cheek’ and ‘dimples’ (line 44). These make us think that for Byron, true beauty had to be pure, because he avoided sexual connotations. Moreover, he emphasises in the perfect balance between the aspect, the mind and the heart. Instead, the beauty of a female in “A Pretty Woman” appears more erotic and less spiritual. There are some words and sentences which can support this idea, for example ‘enfold you’ (line 6), ‘keep you what they make you’ (line 8), ‘make you ours’ (line 13), ‘all’s our own’ (line 17), ‘kiss away one’s soul on her’ (line 57), ‘his hot eyes roll on her’ (line 60).

Other interesting fact was to see which use the poets gave to rhetorical figures and symbolism. In the poem “She Walks in Beauty” a simile is used to describe the beauty compared to nature. The symbolic force of words like ‘dark’ (line3), ‘light’ (line 5), ‘heaven’ (line 6), ‘pure’ (line 12) and ‘innocent’ (line 18) are used to tinge all the aspects of her beauty. In contrast, in “A Pretty Woman” rhetorical questions and allegories are used to support the arguments of distinction between liking and loving a beautiful woman. In that sense, there is no need of symbolism in this poem because the language must keep clear to defend the man’s posture.

The tone a poem is given by the register used by the poet. Byron gives his poem a tone of solemnity because of the heartily admiration he feels for the lady, and he uses an standard but formal register. He does not even appears in the poem which could make us believe that it is an impersonal text, but on the contrary, his absence in the poem gives a sense of universal truth. Browning instead uses a more relaxed register. The appellative ‘Sweet’ is constantly repeated, which gives the idea of a familiar talk. The voice of the man includes himself in the poem saying ‘us’ (line 9), ‘we (lines 13, 22, etc)’, ‘ours’ (lines 13), ‘I’ (line 31 and 32). But we must not get confused because this is a false involvement; it is not the poet who talks, it is a dramatic character.

In conclusion, we have found more differences than similarities in the poems we are analysing. But all those characteristics that we have been talking about, and that make the poems so different, are the reflection of the literature of their time. In this case, two literary periods will necessarily have different visions of Beauty. A beautiful woman can have a spiritual and almost metaphysical aura or a more 'down-to-earth' beauty, depending on who describes her. Also the way to appreciate that beauty can change. And we have found out that for the Romantic poet, Lord Byron, beauty can inspire feelings of love and emotion, while the Victorian poet, Robert Browning seems to appreciate beauty just in terms of momentary liking, without emotional implication, as he tried to do with his own poetry.

5. Personal Response

Poetry can always be subject of different interpretations, more or less interesting; but raising and defending a personal interpretation can be a very educative experience. In my case, the fact of doing research, of reading many poems before choosing the more appropriate for the paper and of drawing connections between them, was quite entertaining. And the two poems I chose have helped me to understand certain characteristics of English poetry.

As I see it, Victorian literature has a more mature poetry. A poetry that covers its intentions with a veil made of subtleties. In opposition to its predecessor, the romantic poetry, that expressed everything in an open way. And sometimes it is more interesting to pay entire attention to a poem to find out its meaning, than to just read it superficially.

Academic year 2007/2008
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Ivonne Pamela Landázuri
ilanbe@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press