she walks in beauty essay question

She Walks in Beauty

By Lord Byron

‘She Walks in Beauty’ by Lord Byron glorifies the atypical beauty of a woman whom the speaker lovingly adores.

Nationality: English

Byron's poetry often dealt with themes of love, death, and morality.

Key Poem Information

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Central Message: A desire to illustrate the features of a woman who has left the speaker smitten with their beauty.

Themes: Beauty , Celebration , Love

Speaker: An individual enamored by feminine beauty.

Emotions Evoked: Compassion , Love for Her , Passion

Poetic Form: Ode

Time Period: 19th Century

Lord Byron’s poem paints a portrait of idiosyncratic beauty using imagery drawn from nature to accentuate the sublime qualities possessed by the feminine form and mind it so deeply reveres.

Poem Analyzed by Elise Dalli

B.A. Honors Degree in English and Communications

Lord George Gordon Byron, famously described as ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know,’ authored a series of poems, such as ‘She Walks in Beauty,’ throughout his incredibly adventurous life.

The bad boy of the Romantic literary movement , Byron was exiled from England mainly due to rumors about his escapades, one of which dogged him until the end of his days — an affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, whom he fathered a child with. Afterward, Byron left England and traveled to Italy and the Far East. He is best known for the long narrative poems ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ and ‘Don Juan’ , which scholars believe was partly based on his life.

‘She Walks in Beauty’ is one of his shorter but better-known poems and was set to music by Isaac Nathan as part of the Hebrew Melodies set. The poem is a wonderful example of Romanticism . Readers may also be interested in pursuing the works of William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats as other examples of the Romantic movement in English literature.

As an exemplary piece of Lord Byron’s poetic style , ‘She Walks in Beauty’ also reveals several major tenets of Romanticism that are important to understanding the poem’s themes.

• Nature was revered by Romantic writers, as its beauty and grandeur were seen as ideals to be aspired to. The speaker ’s comparisons of the female subject to the “night” or describing their hair as a “raven tress” reveals that they see her as the embodiment of nature’s sublime qualities.
• Another focus of Romanticism is the idea of beauty, which was often perceived and characterized as an encounter with something mystical or transcendent. In the poem, the woman is associated with a strangely dark but still transfixing light, while Byron’s diction — “heaven,” “grace,” “serenity,” and “innocent” — convey her ethereal appearance and spirit.

Explore She Walks in Beauty

• 2 Historical Background and Context
• 3 Structure and Form
• 4 Literary Devices
• 6 Analysis, Stanza by Stanza
• 8 Similar Poetry

Scholars believe that ‘ She Walks in Beauty ‘ by Lord Byron was written when the poet met his cousin, Mrs. Anne Beatrix Wilmont.

The speaker spends the lines celebrating the beauty of one woman. He compares her beauty to the night rather than the day. The latter is suggested to be “gaudy,” and the “lady” certainly isn’t. The speaker describes different aspects of the woman, like her hair and skin. She is the image of peaceful beauty. The woman is unaware of the impact that she’s had on the speaker, who is also the poet, by the end of ‘She Walks in Beauty.’ The speaker is interested in the woman’s inner beauty as well as her outer beauty or physical beauty.

The Poem Analysis Take

Expert Insights by Steven Ward

B.A. Honors in English Literature

‘ She Walks in Beauty ’ endures as one of Byron’s most passionate pieces of poetry dedicated to the ideals of beauty and romantic love. Now, whether or not the speaker (or author for that matter) felt any desire or affection for the subject of the poem is highly debatable, especially because the poem itself makes no direct mention of such sentiments. In actuality, the speaker only elaborates on the woman’s features, musing over their strange but mesmerizing quality and the serene purity that lies beneath them. Yet the ardency with which Byron communicates their adoration of her has been enough to inspire insinuations of love between the two. Even if that’s not the case, this impassioned poem reveals the thin line between adoration and infatuation.

Historical Background and Context

Lord George Gordon Byron was born on 22 January 1788 in Dover – though people also believe that he might have been born in London.  He was the son of Captain John ‘Mad Jack’ Byron and his second wife, the heiress of an estate in Aberdeenshire. His first wife, the Marchioness of Carmarthen, was Augusta Leigh’s mother.

As a leading figure of the Romantic movement — an attempt by writers and artists to dispel the scientific, rational movement’s effects and bring back magic and wonder to a humanistic world — Byron is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and one of most influential. Most of his works are inspired, in fact, by his travels: his Grand Tour of Europe, which led him to spend seven years in Italy, partially inspired ‘Don Juan.’ He also fought in the Greek War of Independence and was recognized by them as a national hero .

He died at 36 after contracting a fever that turned into sepsis.

Structure and Form

‘She Walks in Beauty’ by Lord Byron is a three- stanza poem, each stanza of which contains six lines. This is the poetic form that is mostly used for hymns and is thus associated both with simplicity and with chasteness. The poem itself, although a type of love poem, does not refer to passionate or sexual love. The poem follows a rhyme scheme of ABABAB.

The poem’s meter is also written in iambic tetrameter . This means that the lines contain four sets of two beats, the first of which is an unstressed syllable and the second of which is a stressed syllable. These two syllables together make one iamb .

The speaker’s awe at the woman’s beauty comes across as just that: the awe that one would feel for a lovely painting or a picture of nature. It is an especially unusual choice coming from Byron, given that he was mostly known for his lascivious affairs.

Literary Devices

Throughout this poem, the poet makes use of several literary devices. These include but are not limited to:

• Alliteration : occurs when the poet repeats the same consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. For example, “Which waves” in stanza two and “serenely sweet” later on in that same stanza. The latter is also an example of sibilance .
• Juxtaposition : a contrast between two opposites. For example, “all that is best of dark and bright.”
• Enjambment : This can be seen when the poet cuts off a line before its natural stopping point. For example, the transition between lines one and two of the first stanza as well as lines five and six of that same stanza.
• Imagery : occurs when the poet uses particularly interesting descriptions that trigger the reader’s senses. For example, “Which waves in every raven tress, / Or softly lightens o’er her face;”

Throughout this piece, Byron engages with themes of beauty and purity. When seeing his cousin, he’s struck by both elements of her physical presence. She has a pure beauty that he feels is unmatched by any he’s seen in the back. He’s taken by what she looks like as well as her inner beauty. Byron certainly idealizes his vision of his cousin but, it’s this perfect image that makes the poem so widespread and long-lasting. Many readers find themselves connecting to what he has to say or dreaming about experiencing the same feelings for themselves.

Analysis, Stanza by Stanza

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 that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

The speaker opens the poem with perhaps the two most famous lines that Byron has ever written: “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.”  Right from the start, Byron sets the tone of the poem with a comparison that seems almost divine — beauty like the vast, starry night. Her beauty does not seem purely physical, either; instead, it is almost an aura, a shield of beauty, unaware and almost innocent in its unawareness.

It is interesting to note that the poet compares his beloved’s beauty to the night rather than daylight — in fact, the day is considered gaudy, on behalf of the poet — because the tradition for Romantic poetry was to compare one to nature, but to bright nature. The darkness of the word ‘night’ seems to be a reference to the Greek ideal, the beauty that is so strong that it could be almost catastrophic . Helen of Troy was one such beauty; this woman seems to be another, a divine being whose sole purpose in the poem is a shift of chiaroscuro balance.

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.

The poet goes on in the second stanza to compare and contrast different aspects of beauty: her dark hair and her white face, which the light hits, seem to recall images of the Virgin Mary. It is easier to make associations with the divine and the religious due to the poem’s structure, that of a hymnal. There is also an emphasis — which would further strengthen the images of religion — on innocence. The lady’s beauty is largely innocent, almost virginal, and the poet cannot find a word that fully encompasses her beauty.

She reconciles dark and light together, appearing both glowing and also shrouded in darkness. One could make the association that the darkness that surrounds her — given that Byron met Mrs. Wilmont at a funeral — could be spiritual darkness and that her radiance was further set off by the dim spirits at the funeral. However, one could also take it as the expression of the ultimate peaceful beauty.

Stanza Three

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!

Unlike the day, the night is devoid of people, devoid of clouds, and quiet. It is when things rest. She is not warped by her beauty, and she exists in a world that is, to Byron, peaceful — her heart is innocent, her mind clear. Given his nature for troubled thoughts, it is interesting to see what Byron emphasizes as beautiful, though not at all surprising given the rumors that followed him throughout his life.

There is not much happening in the poem; it describes a few snatched moments of peace, quiet, and wonder. The woman is left unaware of the impression she has made on the poet and continues, not knowing that she has become a symbol of beauty to someone witnessing her presence.

The word “love” appears only once across the poem’s three stanzas , arriving in the final line and used to express not the speaker ’s feelings toward the woman — but rather the affection she holds in her heart. Yet Byron’s speaker is smitten with and enraptured by her presence. Their overtures of love are disguised as an adoration of their beauty, both external and internal, that radiates from the woman.

Byron wrote the poem sometime after he attended a party in London on the evening of June 11, 1814. In attendance was his cousin, Sir Robert Wilmot, and the man’s wife, Anne Beatrix Wilmot. Upon seeing the latter the young poet, who was in his mid-twenties at the time, found himself deeply moved and enthralled by the woman’s strange but undeniable beauty.

Similar Poetry

Readers who enjoyed ‘She Walks in Beauty’ should also consider reading some other Lord Byron poems . For example:

• ‘Fare Thee Well ‘ – was Byron’s attempt at rebuilding his reputation. He hoped that people would read it and rethink what they believed about him.
• ‘ Darkness ‘ – serves as a warning against the growing inequality in Byron’s time and a prediction for what will happen to the planet if the human race does not change.
• ‘ My Soul is Dark ‘ – expresses Byron’s appreciation for music.

Poetry + Review Corner

19th century, celebration, love for her, beautiful women, inner beauty.

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Thanks Elise, very cool,i would be lost in an endless ocean of desperate confusion without the light you have kindly thrown over this poem. you have a very sensitive and thoughtful insight and i truly believe that a funeral is the most romantic place for a man to meet his cousins wife. i too met my husband and my sisters funeral, it was very cool

That is a terrific story, is it true?

Are you saying you met your husband at your sisters funeral?well if that is the case, i would say its cool too, because funerals are mostly attended by people who are sincere about their emotions. They truly feel what they say, nobody receives a funeral invitation after all.

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Dalli, Elise. "She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron". Poem Analysis , https://poemanalysis.com/lord-byron/she-walks-in-beauty/ . Accessed 10 June 2024.

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She Walks in Beauty Summary & Analysis by Lord Byron

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"She Walks in Beauty" is a famous poem by British Romantic poet Lord Byron, first published in 1815. The poem praises and seeks to capture a sense of the beauty of a particular woman. The speaker compares this woman to a lovely night with a clear starry sky, and goes on to convey her beauty as a harmonious "meeting" between darkness and light. After its discussion of physical attractiveness, the poem then portrays this outer beauty as representative of inner goodness and virtue.

• Read the full text of “She Walks in Beauty”

The Full Text of “She Walks in Beauty”

1 She walks in beauty, like the night 

2 Of cloudless climes and starry skies; 

3 And all that’s best of dark and bright 

4 Meet in her aspect and her eyes; 

5 Thus mellowed to that tender light 

6 Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 

7 One shade the more, one ray the less, 

8 Had half impaired the nameless grace 

9 Which waves in every raven tress, 

10 Or softly lightens o’er her face; 

11 Where thoughts serenely sweet express, 

12 How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 

13 And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, 

14 So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 

15 The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 

16 But tell of days in goodness spent, 

17 A mind at peace with all below, 

18 A heart whose love is innocent!

“She Walks in Beauty” Summary

“she walks in beauty” themes.

Beauty and Harmony

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

Inner Beauty vs. Outer Beauty

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “she walks in beauty”.

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 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,  Or softly lightens o’er her face; 

Lines 11-12

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,  How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 

Lines 13-18

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!

“She Walks in Beauty” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

End-Stopped Line

Parallelism, “she walks in beauty” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Raven Tress
• Dwelling-Place
• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “She Walks in Beauty”

Rhyme scheme, “she walks in beauty” speaker, “she walks in beauty” setting, literary and historical context of “she walks in beauty”, more “she walks in beauty” resources, external resources.

A Reading of the Poem — The poem read by Tom O'Bedlam.

Byron's Scandals — A documentary about Lord Byron's more salacious side.

Lord Byron's Revenge — Byron launches an attack on the literary establishment—one which helped him make his name.

Byron's Life and More Poems — A good resource from the Poetry Foundation with biographical details on Byron, plus more of his poems.

A Scathing Review — A review of Byron's first collection of poems, which isn't exactly full of praise!

LitCharts on Other Poems by Lord Byron

On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year

So We'll Go No More a Roving

The Destruction of Sennacherib

When We Two Parted

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

She Walks in Beauty Questions

Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer..

• Why do so many people think of this as a love poem, when the speaker never once mentions being in love?
• Why does the poet compare the woman to "night" instead of to "day"?
• The poem emphasizes that the woman's beauty has to do with the harmonious blending of light and dark in her features. Does the speaker believe one better than the other? Why or why not, and how can you tell? What do you think?
• Most critics believe that the woman described in this poem is Byron's cousin by marriage, Lady Wilmot Horton, whom he met at a party the night before writing this piece. If that's true, why doesn't he mention his subject by name? Does your interpretation of the poem change, knowing that it may have been inspired by a specific woman? How so?

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Lord Byron's Poems

By lord byron, lord byron's poems essay questions.

What imagery does Byron associate with the subject of “She Walks in Beauty”?

The subject of “She Walks in Beauty” is described in terms of both darkness and light. She is “like the night,” but her face outshines the “gaudy day.” Her hair is black (“raven tresses”), yet her skin is pale. In her purity, she reconciles these two seemingly opposite images. But is there any substance behind the beauty?

How does Byron create a post-apocalyptic landscape in “Darkness”?

By beginning the poem as “a dream, which was not all a dream,” Byron immediately puts the reader on notice that this is an otherworldly work. He speaks of an extinguished sun and wandering stars—a cosmos in which the darkened Earth glides blindly. The only light of the landscape comes from volcanoes, the eruption of which lights the faces of the remaining people with a ghastly light. The animal world itself is changed, all full of terror and fighting for survival amid their fears. He describes the entire human race eventually dying off with but two remaining—and these two fight and kill one another. The harrowing tone contributes to this landscape, as does the blank verse.

What is the primary theme of “The Prisoner of Chillon”?

“The Prisoner of Chillon” describes an attempt of the human mind or spirit to triumph over physical confinement. The speaker is imprisoned for his religious and political defense of human liberty; his ideals are put to the test as he is himself denied liberty through his chains and the dungeon walls. He suffers through the deaths of his two brothers, but still hopes to find freedom through the tiny window opening out onto a larger world. Unfortunately, at the end, with his spirit shattered by his trials, the prisoner has acclimated himself to his confinement. An inherently free man, he no longer cares about the outside world, having established a kingdom amid his own prison cell. The primary theme of the poem is the struggle of the human spirit against oppression, whether or not this character succeeds.

What is a main function of the “Sonnet of Chillon” which begins “The Prisoner of Chillon”?

“Sonnet on Chillon” begins this lengthy poem. By way of introduction to the larger work the sonnet describes the “chainless Mind” and how it cannot be imprisoned even if the body is shackled. The prison itself is set up as a “holy place” because of what transpired there—the imprisonment of Bonnivard and two of his brothers. The sonnet concludes with an interpretation of Bonnivard’s imprisonment: it is an “appeal from tyranny to God.” This introductory sonnet thus serves to encourage the reader to root for Bonnivard against his captors, for he represents the "chainless Mind" despite what happens to him in prison.

How is Don Juan a mock epic?

The epic-length Don Juan opens with a half-hearted apology by Byron to “better” writers for his own literary shortcomings. He rejects the epic tradition of beginning the story in the middle, by overtly stating he will start with the circumstances of his hero’s birth. Don Juan himself is no epic hero: he is innocent and engages in more misadventure than adventure; his “conquests” are amorous in nature and usually instigated by the women. Although he fights in a battle and proves his courage, Don Juan ultimately creates for himself a home in England to settle and raise his young charge—there is no glorious return to his homeland for Don Juan. In this sense, Byron also is mocking his own life and liaisons.

In what ways is Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage autobiographical?

Each canto of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage describes key parts of Byron's real-life journeys through Europe. In fact, Byron worked on each section of the poem as he was traveling. Although Byron initially denied Childe Harold’s autobiographical connection to himself, he later admitted that he would no longer hold to that device. Each location of Childe Harold’s journey—Portugal, Spain, Greece, Albania, Switzerland, and Italy—is described on the basis of Byron’s own experiences in those specific places. And, in turn, the poet's feelings and reflections are recorded in the poem essentially as his own, with Childe Harold disappearing from the scene, subsumed into Byron's perspective.

What are some political reflections in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage ?

Although ostensibly a travelogue, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage contains a great deal of political diatribe. Byron has harsh words for his own England, which he believes has been tepid in its alliance with Spain against France. He castigates the events of Cintra, when defeated French soldiers were allowed by England to return to their homeland with arms and spoils of war intact. He decries the oppression of the Greeks by Turkey, but admits that (to his mind) many Greeks have become inured to servitude. He concludes the poem in Italy, where the Italians (as did the Greeks) all too often forgot to maintain the memory and honor the work of those great people who established their cultural greatness in earlier centuries. Byron's meditation on centuries of Roman emperors also leads him to the conclusion that every great empire will one day fall; political power is ephemeral.

What is the tone of “When We Two Parted”?

“When We Two Parted” is mournful in its depiction of a lost love. The separation alone would have been cause enough for sorrow, but this pain on the part of the speaker is compounded by the feeling that his beloved has betrayed their relationship. Although they parted as lovers who could not remain together, they become estranged through the beloved’s infidelity. The speaker mourns even more because their love had been a secret and he must mourn alone; the tone is one of lonely sadness.

What does Byron use to create the tone in “When We Two Parted”?

Since there is very little imagery in the poem, the speaker’s mournful tone is made clear with the language, such as his repetition of “silence and tears” in the first and last stanzas. His beloved’s infidelity is made the more harsh when he describes her as having grown “cold” toward him. He draws the picture of the two of them meeting several years hence, but saying nothing, since their former relationship can never be publicly acknowledged.

What is the focus of Byron’s admiration in “She Walks in Beauty”?

The subject of “She Walks in Beauty” is depicted as having as her highest virtue a purity that transcends conflicts and contrasts. Byron focuses his physical description of the woman on her face, yet even here it is her brightness of eye and clarity of countenance which display her inner beauty. She is a faithful and virtuous woman, perhaps because she is simple and untroubled by controversy, but this is the source of her beauty and the reason Byron (and others) admire her.

Lord Byron’s Poems Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Lord Byron’s Poems is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

In “She Walks in Beauty”, how does Lord Byron use parallelism, rhyme, and meter to enhance the experience of his poetry?

“She Walks in Beauty” is written in iambic tetrameter, “a meter commonly found in hymns and associated with ‘sincerity’ and ‘simplicity’” (Moran 2). Byron’s chosen meter conveys to the reader both his purity of intent (there is but one subject for...

What does Byron say remains behind even after civilizations die away?

In the poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage , Byron notes that even though great civilizations decline, their art and literature remain behind.

Why did Lord Byron write the poem "The Vision of Judgment."

Byron wrote “Darkness” in July-August 1816. The poem is at least partly influenced by the mass hysteria of the time brought about by an Italian astronomer’s prediction that the sun would burn itself out on July 18th, thus destroying the world. The...

Study Guide for Lord Byron’s Poems

Lord Byron's Poems study guide contains a biography of Lord Byron, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Lord Byron's Poems
• Lord Byron's Poems Summary
• Character List

Essays for Lord Byron’s Poems

Lord Byron's Poems essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of poetry by Lord Byron.

• An Explication of Lord Byron's She Walks in Beauty and Christopher Marlowe's The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships
• Byron, Keats and Coleridge: The Poetic Masters of the Romantic Period
• Psychology of Imprisonment in "The Prisoner of Chillon"
• Tortured Knights: Eliot, Byron, and Browning
• Homoerotics of Romantic Poetry

Lesson Plan for Lord Byron’s Poems

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Lord Byron's Poems
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Lord Byron's Poems Bibliography

E-Text of Lord Byron’s Poems

Lord Byron's Poems e-text contains the full texts of select poetry by Lord Byron.

• Table of Contents
• Preface to the Poems
• Bibliographical Note to 'Hours of Idleness and Other Early Poems'
• Bibliographical Note to English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
• Early Poems: On Leaving Newstead Abbey

Wikipedia Entries for Lord Byron’s Poems

• Introduction
• Life abroad (1816–1824)

• Dover Beach
• The Love Song
• Rip Van Winkle
• The Lottery
• The Story of an Hour
• Hills Like White Elephants
• To His Coy Mistress
• Annabel Lee
• The Black Cat
• A Dream Within a Dream
• The Imp of the Perverse
• The Pit and the Pendulum
• The Tell-Tale Heart
• The Masque of the Red Death
• The Cask of Amontillado
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• Henry 4 Part 1
• Henry 4 Part 2
• Measure for Measure
• The Merchant of Venice
• The Merry Wifes of Windsor
• A Midsummers Night Dream
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Richard III
• The Two Gentleman of Verona
• Literary Terms
• Meter in Poetry

 “She Walks in Beauty” is a lyric poem centering on the extraordinary beauty of a young lady. George Gordon Byron (commonly known as Lord Byron) wrote the poem in 1814 and published it in a collection, Hebrew Melodies , in 1815. 

The theme of the poem is the woman's exceptional beauty, internal as well as external. The first stanza praises her physical beauty. The second and third stanzas praise both her physical and spiritual, or intellectual, beauty. 

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 mellow'd to that tender light          5   Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less,    Had half impair'd the nameless grace  Which waves in every raven tress,    Or softly lightens o'er her face;   10 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,   15   But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below,    A heart whose love is innocent! .

The rhyme scheme of the first stanza is ababab; the second stanza, cdcdcd; and the third stanza, efefef. All the end rhymes are masculine . The meter is predominantly iambic tetrameter , a pattern in which a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables—eight syllables in all. The first two lines demonstrate the pattern followed throughout the poem except for line 6, which has nine syllables: 

        1 ................. 2 ................. 3 ............... 4 Of CLOUD | less CLIMES | and STAR | ry SKIES

Enjambment links the end of line 1 with line 2. Enjambment means carrying the sense of one line of verse over to the next line without a pause. (Note that there is no pause after night . Pauses occur at the end of the other lines.)

Use of Alliteration

Alliteration occurs frequently to enhance the appeal of the poem to the ear. The most obvious examples of this figure of speech include the following:

Line 2: .... cl oud l ess cl imes; s tarry s kies.  Line 6: .... d ay d enies  Line 8: .... H ad h alf Line 9: .... W hich w aves Line 11. .. s erenely s weet Line 14. .. S o s oft, s o Line 18. .. H eart Wh ose

Examples of other figures of speech are the following:

Lines 1, 2: ...... Simile comparing the movement of the beautiful woman to the movement of the skies  Line 6: ............ Metonymy , in which heaven is substituted for God or for the upper atmosphere Lines 8-10: ...... Metaphor comparing grace, a quality, to a perceivable phenomenon Lines 11-12: .... Metaphor and personification comparing thoughts to people; metaphor and personification comparing the mind to a home ( dwelling-place ) Lines 13-16: .... Metaphor and personification comparing the woman's cheek and brow to persons who tell of days in goodness spent

Byron presents an ethereal portrait of the young woman in the first two stanzas by contrasting white with black and light with shadow in the same way that nature presents a portrait of the firmament—and the landscape below—on a cloudless starlit evening. He tells the reader in line 3 that she combines “the best of dark and bright” ( bright here serving as an noun rather than an adjective) and notes that darkness and light temper each other when they meet in her raven hair. Byron's words thus turn opposites into compeers working together to celebrate beauty.

Study Questions and Writing Topics

1. .. What is beauty? To what extent does beauty depend on personality? 2. .. Was Byron declaring his love for the young woman or simply celebrating her beauty? 3. .. Write a poem about a quality—strength, generosity, kindness, beauty, charm, selflessness, etc.  4. .. Write an essay that analyzes another poem by Byron. 

She Walks in Beauty: Summary and Questions

Table of Contents

She Walks in Beauty

Lord Byron had a concern for liberty which was associated with the romantic poets. He also possessed the love of nature and the concept of love and beauty just like the other romantics. But Lord Byron was an admirer of Pope and the trends of 18th-century poetry. Byron’s natural mode of poetry was narration. He skillfully used Heroic Couplet, the Spencerian and the Ottawa Rima.

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Story Behind the Lyric

Written just several months before he met and married his first wife, Anna Milbanke, and published in Hebrew Melodies in 1815, the poem of praise “She Walks in Beauty” was inspired by the poet’s first sight of his young cousin by marriage, Anne Wilmot, who was wearing a black spangled mourning dress. Lord Byron was struck by his cousin’s dark hair and fair face, the mingling of various lights and shades.

Of course, it’s obvious that this poem is somewhat of a love poem, expressing how beautiful this woman is that Lord Byron is looking at. Whether it is a true declaration of love or a statement of admiration (of his cousin’s beauty) is left to the reader.

The balance between ‘shade’ and ‘light’ in the lady’s beauty is so perfect that if one more ‘shade’, is added or a single ‘ray’ of light is taken away it would partially damage the woman’s beauty. Her beauty and ‘grace’ are so hard to define that they are ‘nameless’. This ‘nameless grace’ is visible in every lock of her black (raven) hair (tress) and it ‘lightens’ her face. The balance between light and dark that creates her ‘nameless grace’ is apparent in both her dark hair and in the expression that ‘lightens her face.’ Her sweet expressions are reflected of what is going on inside her mind. The sweetness of this lady’s expression suggests that her mind is ‘pure and innocent’.

The word ‘she’ could suggest an air of mystery around the women because he does not know her. She could be anyone. The verb ‘walk’ could imply that everything around her is beautiful. It is not just her physical appearance that he admires but everything about her is charming even the way she walks.

Byron uses the contrast of ‘dark and bright’ throughout the poem. This could suggest that both ‘dark’ and ‘bright’ come together in this woman to create perfection and balance. ‘tender light’ and ‘gaudy day’ could imply that her beauty is understated and natural. The poet admires how effortless her beauty is. He is also admiring her perfection.

By using the adjective ‘raven’ this could suggest an element of danger about the women. Byron is also breaking the conventions of stereotypical sense of beauty.

“But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below,”

Byron is admiring her innocence and kindness.

There are many interpretations of this. This could suggest that he is just physically attracted to her and so he does not love her. However this could suggest that by writing the poem in the order he does not show the process of falling live with someone and he realises in the end that, he does love her.

Theme and Poetic Devices

Questions of she walks in beauty.

Question 1. What does she walk in beaut y mean?

2 thoughts on “She Walks in Beauty: Summary and Questions”

What is the critical reviews which happens in this poem ?

How Romantic elements are fulfilled by in this poem ?

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The most flamboyant and notorious of the major English Romantic poets, George Gordon, Lord Byron, was likewise the most fashionable poet of the early 1800s. He created an immensely popular Romantic hero—defiant, melancholy, haunted by secret guilt—for which, to many, he seemed the model. He...

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Poetry — Analysis Of She Walks In Beauty Poem By Lord Byron

Analysis of She Walks in Beauty Poem by Lord Byron

• Categories: Poetry

About this sample

Words: 939 |

Published: Apr 11, 2019

Words: 939 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

Literary analysis of "she walks in beauty" poem, works cited.

• Byron, G.G. (1813). "She Walks in Beauty." Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43842/she-walks-in-beauty
• Byron, G.G. (2015). "She Walks in Beauty." In The Norton Anthology of English Literature (10th ed., Vol. D, pp. 330-331). W.W. Norton & Company.
• Cox, J. (2003). "Byron and the 'Edifice of Words': Gender, Language, and Power in 'She Walks in Beauty'." European Romantic Review, 14(1), 91-113.
• Drummond, J. (2004). "Byron's 'She Walks in Beauty': An Exploration of Englishness and the Picturesque." Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 27(3), 387-401.
• Gjelsvik, A. (2016). "'She Walks in Beauty' and the Sublime." In The Cambridge Companion to British Romantic Poetry (pp. 133-147). Cambridge University Press.
• Hillier, R. (2013). "From Miniature to Moment: A Study of 'She Walks in Beauty'." Studies in Romanticism, 52(3), 335-354.
• Kelly, G. (2002). "The Sexual Politics of Byron's 'She Walks in Beauty'." The Wordsworth Circle, 33(1), 22-27.
• McGann, J.J. (1983). "Byron's 'She Walks in Beauty': Toward a Theory of Romantic Closure." Modern Language Notes, 98(5), 915-934.
• Ready, M. (2018). "Byron's Poetic Techniques in 'She Walks in Beauty'." In The Handbook of Creative Writing (pp. 425-437). Edinburgh University Press.
• Sairanen, V. (2011). "Rethinking Beauty in Byron's 'She Walks in Beauty'." Studia Neophilologica, 83(2), 139-151.

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'She walks in beauty' by Lord Byron - Study Guide

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

29 February 2024

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A full study guide for the poem ‘She walks in beauty’ by Lord Byron. It’s suitable for students of all levels, including those studying the following exams:

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A bumper bundle of 18 resources for all poems on the WJEC (EDUQAS) GCSE Literature syllabus! Everything you need to teach or study the poems in detail. Each **digital + printable** pdf study guide covers a range of key information for the poems, including an exploration into language, structure, forms, themes, context and attitudes. A series of tasks, exercises and possible essay questions are also included! Have a resource on us! Download [Duffy's 'Valentine' for free here](http://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/-valentine-by-carol-ann-duffy-complete-study-guide-12766602) to view an example of our resources, and see whether the full bundle is right for you. Poems included in the bundle: * 'A Wife in London' - Thomas Hardy * 'Afternoons' - Philip Larkin * 'As Imperceptibly as Grief' - Emily Dickinson * 'Cozy Apologia' - Rita Dove * 'Death of a Naturalist' - Seamus Heaney * 'Dulce et Decorum Est' - Wilfred Owen * 'Excerpt from the Prelude' - William Wordsworth * 'Hawk Roosting' - Ted Hughes * 'Living Space' - Imitiaz Dharker * 'London' - William Blake * 'Mametz Wood' - Owen Sheers * 'Ozymandias' - Percy Bysshe Shelley * 'She walks in beauty' - Lord Byron * 'Sonnet 43' - Elizabeth Barrett Browning * 'The Manhunt' - Simon Armitage * 'The Soldier' - Rupert Brooke * 'To Autumn' - John Keats * 'Valentine' - Carol Ann Duffy Each analysis includes: VOCABULARY STORY + SUMMARY SPEAKER + VOICE ATTITUDES LANGUAGE FEATURES STRUCTURE / FORM CONTEXT THEMES ATTITUDES TASKS + EXERCISES SAMPLE ESSAY QUESTIONS You may also be interested in: [To Kill A Mockingbird Revision Bundle](http://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12390641) [An Inspector Calls Revision Bundle](http://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/an-inspector-calls-revision-bundle-12611113) Please review our content! We always value feedback and are looking for ways to improve our resources, so all reviews are more than welcome. Check our [shop](https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/ntabani) for other literature and language resources.

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She Walks in Beauty, Essay Example

Pages: 2

Words: 637

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Introduction

“She Walks in Beauty” is a poem by Lord Byron; it is an amazing poem published in 1815. The speaker in this poem talks about the immense beauty of a lady in the night’s darkness. There are many dissimilarities in the manner and the words he uses to describe the woman’s personality and attractiveness. Contrasting terms such as bright and dark, as well as less and more, are used. We cannot honestly say that the speaker here knows the woman, but they seem familiar; the woman is described to be innocent, pure, and good.  By having the title, she walks in beauty shows the reader that perfect beauty is a combination of inner beauty as well as outward looks. The main theme of this poem is beauty and harmony of body and mind. In “She Walks in Beauty,” poet Lord Byron touches on the gorgeousness of this woman through the use of simile, metaphor, and imagery.

Poetic Devices

Similes were used to compare the beauty of this woman with different objects to prove and convince the audience regarding the lady’s beauty. In the first sentence of this poem, a simile used as the author says, “She walks in beauty, like the night.” (Lord n,p) the walk of the woman with a clear and dark night meaning that the lady walked so softly that her footsteps could not be heard. The speaker recognizes this lady’s humanistic body, and he is entranced by the woman’s natural beauty against the dark, starry sky (Razzaq et al. 441). This helps create an open image in the reader’s cognizance, assisting them get involved and absorb what is being described.

The author has also relied upon metaphor to be able to convey vivid imagery that exceeds literal meaning and create images that are simple to comprehend and respond to compared to literal language. In the eleventh and twelfth sentences, a metaphor was applied. The speaker said that “Where thoughts serenely sweet express / How pure how dear their dwelling place.” (Lord n,p). In this case, the poet is comparing the mind with dwelling place and people with thoughts. Similarly, the “raven trees” present the lady’s dark hair that adds to her gorgeousness. This metaphorical language stimulates the imagination, and thus the speaker was more able to convey impressions and emotions.

Lord Byron relied on imagery to appeal to the sense of the reader -Taste, sight, smell, touch, and sound-. To the sense of sight, the speaker used appealing images like “cloudless climes,” “night,” “cheek,” “starry sky,” and “brow.” These imageries have spoken for themselves and have allowed the readers to feel similar beauty delighting the poet. They have helped the speaker to be able to engage the readers emotionally, physically, and mentally (Razzaq et al. 450). These devices have assisted the speaker to be able to painting the faultless harmony of the inner as well as the outer attractiveness of the lady.

This poem explains its subject issue as being obsessed with beauty. The poem has been compiled effectively, incorporating all the necessary aspects to ensure that the reader gets the intended message. The thematic message that we can get from this poem is the goodness and the perfect beauty of an idealized lady. Lord Bryon does not attempt to give any individuality to his subject; instead, he makes the lady universal, for any man can be able to see his inamorata in the poem. By describing beauty in terms of balance and disparity between dark and light indicates that the prettiness of this leady is not unearthly but still unusual.

Works Cited

“She Walks In Beauty By Lord Byron (George Gordon) | Poetry Foundation”. Poetry Foundation, 2021, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43844/she-walks-in-beauty.

Razzaq, Abdul Razzaq Darweesh Abdul. “The Significance of Woman as an Image in Wordsworth’s” The Solitary Reaper” and Byron’s” She Walks in Beauty”.” Journal of Basra researches for Human Sciences 42.6 (2017).

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Mark Scheme & Model Answer ( Edexcel GCSE English Literature )

Revision note.

English and Language Lead

Writing a poetry comparison essay for the Edexcel English Literature course is probably the most complex piece of writing you will have to undertake at GCSE. However, there are ways to simplify the process. The best way to improve any essay is to know how you are assessed, and what skills you are being assessed on. This page has been created to give you a sense of what examiners are looking for in a full-mark response to the poetry anthology question. It contains:

• Mark scheme

Example task

• Model answer

Unannotated model answer

In part (a) of Section B you will be asked to compare a named poem from the Pearson Poetry Anthology collection to another poem from that collection. You must also make links to the context in which the poems were written. This can seem daunting, especially as you have to write about two separate poems in one essay, and that only one of these poems is printed in the exam paper. However, examiners just want to see your ideas and opinions on the poems you have studied. The guide below will enable you to best express these ideas and opinions in a way that will gain the highest marks.

You are more likely to perform well on the paper if you keep in mind the dominant assessment objectives for this question. For this section you are assessed on AO2 and AO3: you are awarded 15 marks for AO2 and 5 marks for AO3.

Mark Scheme

The mark scheme for the Edexcel GCSE English Literature specification can seem intimidating at first. However, it is crucial that you have a thorough understanding of the mark scheme because, in doing so, you will know exactly what you are being assessed on and how to improve.

AO2 and AO3 are assessed as part of Section B part (a). The weighting for this question is:

Here is a simple version of the Edexcel mark scheme for the Poetry Anthology question:

Regardless of which poetry anthology you have studied, the type of question you’ll need to write an essay for will be the same. You will be asked a question that asks you to compare and analyse two anthology poems. Your answer will need to address both the given (printed) poem and another poem of your choice from the anthology.

The following task is based on the May 2019 Edexcel GCSE English Literature Paper 2 exam and is focused on the Relationships Anthology. However, the commentary is designed to highlight how to structure your response and integrate all aspects of the assessment objectives, and therefore the model could be applied to any poetry anthology question in the examination.

We will now explore how you can create an informed and coherent argument using an example of a question from part (a) Section B. First, let’s read through the question below:

When structuring your essay, the most important thing to do is to have a clear introductory sentence (also known as a “topic sentence”) at the beginning of every paragraph. This topic sentence must make one clear point that is directly related to the focus of the question. Here are a couple of great topic sentences that explore different aspects of admiration for another person. For this example, we will compare Byron’s poem with Keats’s poem 'La Belle Dame sans Merci':

When writing the rest of your paragraph, all your points then should relate to your topic sentence. It is also a great idea to maintain a focus on the key term of the question (here, “admiration for another person”) throughout your argument.

Model Answer

Below you will find a full-mark, Grade 9 model answer for this task. The commentary labelled in each section of the essay illustrates how and why it would be awarded Grade 9. Despite the fact it is an answer to a question on the Relationships Anthology, the commentary is relevant to any question based on poems in any of the other anthologies, because it is modelling how to structure an answer incorporating the relevant assessment objectives.

• Ensure your writing is informed by perceptive comparisons and contrasts
• Demonstrate a range of similarities and/or differences between both poems
• Aim to demonstrate an understanding of form, language and structure and their effects
• Have a firm understanding of the context as this will add depth to your analysis
• Remember to integrate context throughout your response
• Relevant subject terminology should be integrated and precise

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Kate has over 12 years of teaching experience as a Head of English and as a private tutor. Having also worked at the exam board AQA and in educational publishing, she's been writing educational resources to support learners in their exams throughout her career. She's passionate about helping students achieve their potential by developing their literacy and exam skills.