TO A LADY

From “Fugitive pieces”, by Lord Byron

This work belongs to Byron's first volume of verse entitled Fugitive pieces which was privately printed in the autumn of 1806 when the author was 18 years old. Nevertheless, this work was published a year later, after being revised, changed and expanded, under the name of Poems on Various Occasions (The Columbia Encyclopedia).

First of all I shall mention the main theme in the poem. The author, in To a Lady, describes the lack of common sense Romantic thinking arose, specially among women and with this lady in particular. We can see how the lady in the poem is asking Lord Byron to meet her in one of the most undesirable places to make an appointment in winter, as she chooses a garden, i.e. outdoors, just because in the romantic collective unconscious that is the place where love has been declared since Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, what he states by writing “…Since Shakespeare set the precedent, since Juliet first declared her passion…”. And this is the main subject of the poem, although there are other side ideas developed. Jealousy, for instance, is mentioned in the poem, something the author wonders about because even being sure that “their” love is ensured the Lady still doubts it, he writes “…our love is fixed…then wherefore should we sigh and whine…” just to keep to the idea that real love follows the Romantic pattern “merely to make our love romantic?”.

It is specially evident with the comparison of the Lady with Lydia Languish and with which the author proves what I am stating because Lydia Languish – one of the characters in Sheridan’s The Rivals-, is a young heiress obsessed with romantic novels who was obsessed with a poor soldier. Unbeknownst to her, the soldier is really not a soldier but a Captain. A captain who, in order to court her, has assumed this identity to indulge Lydia's illusions about romantic love.

And finally, this also demonstrates that the poem has a straightforward meaning as every single thought of the author is very clearly expressed in almost every line of the verses, as for example when the author expresses his wail as he writes “Oh! Would some modern muse inspire, and set her by a sea-coal fire…”, like expressing author’s regret to such an unconscious inherited thought.

In regard tone and mood, I’d say that the author is being completely ironic, heavy irony seems to soar all round the poem, some examples are more evident than others. For instance when he writes on the Bard and what he had written “…and laid the scene of love in Britain…, has chang’d the place of declaration… In Italy, I’ve no objection (of meeting her)…” and moreover if the Bard proposed it at Christmas time and in England, where rough weather is what everybody expects to find!

The idea is very romantic but doing it in England and in the garden it is more like a crazy one, something the author seems to laugh at when he says “…doom the lover you have chosen… to sigh half frozen… merely to make our love romantic?”. Of course, Italy would be different because it ‘s much warmer. Thus, this seems to strengthen the proposed idea of the author being ironic, also because one can infer Byron’s thoughts of the likes of: “Ok, let’s be romantic, but not mad”.

I have been surprised a little bit by the stanza form of the poem, as there seems to be a mix of different syllable measure and number of lines. Although there is regularity with the metre, ranging from 8 to 9 syllables in all of the verses, what shocks me is that I could find (or I think I did) quatrains, sextets along with ten and twelve verses stanzas which are unknown to me.

The rhyme is also quite regular as it follows the pattern aa bb cc and so on, every two or four verses.

Finally, there is the language usage to highlight both the vocabulary chosen in some occasions and for the chosen words to keep rhyming with other verses. For the former, there are examples such as the word “sigh” instead of “shiver” and “whine” as he is still being ironic as this word can be also used for complaining just at the idea of being frozen in the garden, shivering. For the latter, the author uses the words “consent” and “precedent” and a change in pronunciation must be done for these two words to rhyme with those in previous verses such as “chosen” and “frozen”.

Lord Byron must feel kind of embarrassed with the lady’s proposal and, why not going a bit further I shall say that he was sick of the whole affair with this lady, especially for the overall tone of irony lying all over the poem. I think the whole story is fun, just the point of starting a poem to a lady saying that the “locks love” she offers him for him are chains to confine their hearts is already quite daring, like an introduction to what he shall say to her: “If my passion fail to please, next night I’ll be content to freeze”.

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SOURCES:

http://www.bartleby.com/65/by/Byron-Ge.html

http://books.jibble.org/1/5/3/6/15368/15368-8/FugitivePiecesbyGeorgeGordonNo-0.html

http://www.coloradoshakes.org/research/plays/riv92.htm

http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/theater/productions/arcadia/byron.html