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!
POEM ANALYSIS
The poem which we have going to analyze is "Solitude", of Lord Byron.
Firstly, and speaking about its structure, we can say
that it’s divided in two stanzas, with nine verses each one. I thing Byron uses
the third person of the plural to emphasize that the protagonist is the human
being.
In this poem Lord Byron shows us some basic features
of the Romanticism, as the exhaustive description of the nature or the
exaltation of the emotions.
"Solitude" is a clear critique to the contemporary society and its consequences in comparison with the nature and the past. It's so evident that the distinction between two times not just appears in the structure (two stanzas), also appears in the adaptation of the language to each time (Old English in the first stanza, Contemporary English in the second stanza).
Byron has an evident perception: the nature and the
solitude are uncongenial. He thinks that if we’re experimenting with the
options which the nature provides us, we aren't alone. The absolute identifying
with the nature, which is expressed by the author in his verses, is in contrast
with his view of the contemporary society.
In the first stanza, Byron describes us the idyllic
aspects of the contact with the nature. He speaks about forests, mountains...
Through a variety of literary recourses (like
metaphors, i.e.: "Converse with Nature's charms") the author
emphasizes that to be alone in the nature doesn't mean to be in solitude,
because the nature itself goes with us.
In the second stanza, the poet tries to express us
that the city is the place where there is solitude. According to the poem, in
spite of that there's civilization and many people around us, we're alone. For
example, in the second and third verses, Byron contrasts the reality and the
simple appearance. He tries to explain us that in this society nobody is
concerned for another one, and this is the genuine solitude.
In regard to the rest of his poems, we can say that
“Solitude” possesses one of the many singularities in the work of Byron: to
have aversion by the society and the social institutions (http://es.wikipedia ).
But on the contrary that in most of his poems, in this
one is no a protagonist personified in a subject as a hero or antihero, but
that we were with a quite abstract protagonist: the human being.
With it, Byron equips with total importance the nature.
Although the protagonist is not a human subject, the paper of the human being
is displayed; in second stanza, like the one of the antihero of the present
society.
My first conclusion after reading the poem is so
clear. Solitude transmits me that its author has the need to hold on something
that it broadcasts him complete certainly. Something that cannot disappoint to him. In this case, the nature.
After reading this poem I decided to do research into
the life of the author, to understand the reason of the rejection to the
society by him.
At first time, I thought that the poet could
have had a great deception with an important person in his past. After going
deeply into the biography of the author, I thought that the deformity in his
foot, the jokes because of that and the fact that his father didn't support
him, affect Byron. Because of that, the poet took affection for something which
would never fail him: the nature.
I have read some opinions about the poem. They said
that this poem contribute to a reflexion by the
readers about the theme.
My feeling is quite different. I think that the
opinion of the people about this theme is too consistent, and a simple poem
can't change that.
In conclusion, although this poem of Lord Byron
doesn't have caused a reflexion to me, I must admit it's beauty.
The exaltation of feelings and its narration by the
poet take to the poem a frantic rhythm. It's very interesting.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/lord_byron