Outline: Comparison of Romantic Poetry:
I. Introduction
1. Romantic concerns in poetry
2. Choice of poems and poets
3. Thesis statement: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Music” and Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty” are very different in form and atmosphere, but they have much in common in the areas where they fall into the category of Romantic poetry, including poetic devices and concerns or issues of Romantic poets.
II. Shelley’s “Music”
1. Basic structure of the poem
2. Other poetic devices
3. Subject of the poem
4. Concerns of the poem
III. Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”
1. Basic structure of the poem
2. Other poetic devices
3. Subject of the poem
4. Concerns of the poem
IV. Comparison of the Poems
1. Comparison of basic structure and devices
2. Comparison of subjects and concerns
V. Conclusion
Comparison of Romantic Poetry:
Shelley’s “Music” and Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”
Poets of the Romantic era were preoccupied with expressing particular concerns of humanity, including beauty, death, memory, sleep, nightmares, the subconscious, and the pleasure and pain from love and death. Romantic poetry views life through a filter of feelings, the emotional and physical sensation aroused by contemplating humanity’s concerns. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Music” and Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty” are very different in form and atmosphere, but they have much in common in the areas where they fall into the category of Romantic poetry, including poetic devices and concerns or issues of Romantic poets.
Shelley’s poem, “Music,” is comprised of two stanzas and four couplets. The first couplet does not rhyme, though the remaining ones do. This non-rhyming couplet serves to give the reader pause, as if Shelley is asking the reader to slow down for a moment to reflect on the words that follow, without haste.
Shelley uses some other poetic devices as well adding to the smooth flow of the poem. Consonance with the “s” sound in lines one and two with the words “music,” “soft,” and “vibrates,” continues through the rest of the poem. He uses alliteration such as in lines three and four with the words, “sweet,” “sicken,” and “sense.” The rhyme scheme in lines three through eight of the poem offer a lyrical sense to it, like the “music” mentioned in line one.
Although the poem is referred with the title of “Music,” it is actually an untitled piece and so called because that is the first word of the poem. Therefore, the subject of the poem intended by Shelley is not literally music. Instead, after several readings of the poem, its subject can be seen as life and death and their similarity to being awake and slumber. Sensual words like “vibrates,” “odours,” “violets,” and “rose” link the physical to the emotional with words like “die,” “memory,” “sicken,” and “dead.” The poem is as much about the resonating memory of a person whose lover has died as it is about the same person’s contemplation of such a future while watching the loved one sleep.
Shelley’s poem, in traditional Romantic fashion, likens sleep to death, and the very brevity of the poem emphasizes how fleeting life is before all that is left are memories. Shelley writes, “Music, when soft voices die,/ Vibrates in the memory –” suggesting there is pleasure that lasts in the memory of days passed (1-2). However, the following couplet, “Odours, when sweet violets sicken,/ Live within the sense they quicken” suggest that pleasure is not the only feeling that is aroused by the passing into sleep or death (3-4). “Odours” and “sicken” are not positive word-choices; though positive vibrations linger, there is also a sense of alarm and ill-feelings mixed with the pleasure of the memories. The “beloved’s bed” mentioned in the second stanza could be either a lovers’ bed or a grave. Shelley ends the poem with the words, “And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,/ Love itself shall slumber on” (7-8). Words like “thy” and “thou” lend to the Romantic tone of the poem. Shelley leaves the question open to the reader: does love, after a lover leaves or passes away, truly die, or does it fade into something gentler, a simple slumber of dreams? Questions like this are common concerns of the Romantic poet.
Byron’s poem, “She Walks in Beauty,” is divided into three stanzas, each following an ABABAB rhyme scheme. The verse is mostly in iambic tetrameter; both of these elements give a lyrical feeling to the poem, as if Byron wishes readers to fall into the musical rhythm of his ode to his subject.
Byron uses other poetic devices that also add to the lyrical nature of the poem. Enjambment, in which a single phrase is divided between two lines, pushes the flow of the poem forward. Alliteration is used, with phrases such as “cloudless climes,” “starry skies,” and “serenely sweet” (2, 11). Sibilance, the repetition of the “s” sound throughout the poem, contributes to the soft continuity of its musical feel.
Byron’s subject appears at first to be a straightforward one. On the surface, his poem is the simple celebration of the beauty of a woman the poem’s speaker views. Physical aspects of the woman are mentioned, such as “her eyes,” her “raven tress,” “her face,” her “brow,” and her “smiles” (4, 9, 10, 13, 15). However, it is not only the physical characteristics of the woman considered, but also that her beauty reflects her “aspect,” or demeanor, and her inner self (4). In one sense, Byron’s poem demonstrates contrast. “Beauty—like the night,” is distinguished from with “gaudy day” (1, 6). “All that’s best of dark and bright,” demonstrates how contrasting elements serve to highlight and perfect each other (3). Both types of description are very sensual. The woman herself is a bit of a mystery; she could simply be a random beauty the speaker admires, his lover, or a woman in mourning for the death of a loved one. “A mind at peace with all below,” could mean a woman who is content with earthly life below the heavens, or a woman who has come to terms with someone who is dead, “below” meaning underground (17).
Because this is Romantic poetry, Byron intends the reader to consider that any or all of the above ideas apply to his subject. Yet, it is not the external features of the woman that contribute to her true beauty, but her inner self. As the speaker admires her face, he comments on “How pure, how dear their dwelling place,” describing his feeling that it is the loveliness of her mind and soul expressing themselves in her features and expression giving her this beauty (12). In the final stanza, Byron again focuses on internal beauty, describing the woman as having “days in goodness spent” and “a heart whose love is innocent” (16, 18). The literature of this period often incorporates the idea that physiognomy, or physical appearance, is a direct reflection of the kind of person one is internally. The beauty of the soft and lovely woman Byron describes is linked to the night, which rather than being considered a time of darkness and evil, is a Romantic demonstration of how there is beauty in all things, especially contrasting things.
Shelley’s and Byron’s poems are different in form; Shelley’s poem is much shorter with only eight lines, but this is appropriate because his subject reflects on the brevity of life and love. Byron’s poem is not of epic length either, but it is long enough to pay lyrical homage to the beautiful woman that is his subject. Shelley’s poem is much darker in its contemplation of life and death, while Byron’s poem has a lighter tone with its contemplation of light and darkness.
Despite the differences in form and tone, the poems also have much in common. Both use rhyme schemes and sound devices like alliteration or sibilance that lend to their lyrical nature. Additionally, the word choice in both poems is very sensual; descriptions are designed to appeal to the emotional senses as well as the physical. Contrasts of life and death in Shelley’s poem or dark and light in Byron’s poem are used to heighten the feelings of the reader in connection with the sensual appeal of the poems. Word choices in both poems lead to a dreamy atmosphere of contemplation.
The differences in form and subject are expected, since Shelley and Byron are different poets. However, when it comes to the main aspects of Romantic poetry, Shelley’s “Music” and Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty” are not so different in the poetic devices, lyrical nature, and concerns with contrast that are shared with many other Romantic poets.
Music
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory -
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
She Walks in Beauty
Lord Byron
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;
Thus mellowed to the 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
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 yet eloquent,
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.
