Lord Byron Tone

Simile-“Sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water” (4). This quote makes me think of the main character losing control. In this quote, the water is used in a simile to represent how she feels like she's just letting her opportunities slip through her fingers and she feels like there isn't anything she can do to stop it from happening because much like water you have no way of keeping it in your hands. Diction-“At my feet, the city doused its lights in sleep, its buildings blackened, as if for funeral” (11).

‘When we two parted’ is an elegy of the loss of love, Byron is reflecting and analyzing a relationship that has already ended. His grief, anger and despair, intensifies his use of first person, which maintains a strong impact on the audience throughout. The poem is powerful, personal and unreserved, the emotion and passion is definitely felt through his writing. Byron’s message is ambiguous; so the reader is able to make their own assumption this is the beauty of the poem,

The experience of darkness is both individual and universal. Within Emily Dickinson’s “We grow accustomed to the Dark” and Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night,” the speakers engage in an understanding of darkness and night as much greater than themselves. Every individual has an experience of the isolation of the night, as chronicled in Frost’s poem, yet it is a global experience that everyone must face, on which Dickinson’s poem elaborates. Through the use of rhythm, point of view, imagery, and mood, each poet makes clear the fact that there is no single darkness that is too difficult to overcome.

In the beginning, there is very little light. It is almost dusk, and the speaker describes the smell as “dark” (7). Towards the middle and end there are various lights: lanterns, lamplight, fireflies, lamp (9, 11, 13, 20). This change over time depicts the storyteller’s significance to the speaker, because she brought enlightenment to his life. In this poem, light is a metaphor for knowledge, while darkness is a metaphor for ignorance. At the end, the old wise storyteller, who is the embodiment of wisdom, “was the lamplight” (20). In contrast, the two boys, who are young and ignorant, are “in one shadow” (21). The juxtaposition of light with darkness shows that the speaker and storyteller are opposites in their insight. Additionally, it is strange that she is a light before them, yet they are still shadowed. What is blocking the light from them? This metaphor illustrates that it takes time for people to become sage like their elders. As the speaker says, adulthood is “childhood’s aftermath,” which means that the knowledge people gain in childhood will lead them to be wise adults such as the storyteller

Lightness and darkness is a common theme throughout literature, most writers use it through symbols in their writing. In Poe’s story “Masque of the Red Death” and Hawthorne’s story “Minister’s Black Veil” both portray themes of lightness and darkness using symbolism throughout.

The Romantic Period centered on creative imagination, nature, mythology, symbolism, feelings and intuition, freedom from laws, impulsiveness, simplistic language, personal experiences, democracy, and liberty, significant in various art forms including poetry. The development of the self and self-awareness became a major theme as the Romantic Period was seen as an unpredictable release of artistic energy, new found confidence, and creative power found in the writings of the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley, who made a substantial impact on the world of poetry. Two of the Romantic poets, William Blake, and Percy Bysshe Shelley rebelled against convention and authority in search of personal, political and artistic freedom. Blake and Shelley attempted to liberate the subjugated people through the contrary state of human existence prevalent throughout their writings, including Blake’s “The Chimney Sweepers,” from “Songs of Innocence”, “London,” from “Songs of Experience” and Shelley’s A Song: “Men of England.”

However, the poem has fluidity despite its apparent scarcity of rhyme. After examining the alteration of syllables in each line, a pattern is revealed in this poem concerning darkness. The first nine lines alternate between 8 and 6 syllables. These lines are concerned, as any narrative is, with exposition. These lines set up darkness as an internal conflict to come. The conflict intensifies in lines 10 and 11 as we are bombarded by an explosion of 8 syllables in each line. These lines present the conflict within one's own mind at its most desperate. After this climax, the syllables in the last nine lines resolve the conflict presented. In these lines, Dickinson presents us with an archetypal figure that is faced with a conflict: the “bravest” hero. These lines present the resolution in lines that alternate between 6 and 7 syllables. Just as the syllables decrease, the falling action presents us with a final insight. This insight discusses how darkness is an insurmountable entity that, like the hero, we must face to continue “straight” through “Life” (line 20).

     William Stafford’s "Traveling through the dark" is beautifully written poem that expresses one of life’s most challenging aspects. It is the story of a man’s solitary struggle to deal with a tragic event that he encounters.

Lord Byron’s “Darkness” illustrates a dark and pessimistic outlook for the world as we know it. The world loses all sense of hope and is left with only despair and darkness after the loss of the provider of thought and hope-sunlight. With the extinction of sunlight comes the destruction of social classes due to inevitable fear of death, and, as a result, all that is left is chaos. The psychological mind drastically changes its mannerisms and mode of thinking when faced with life and death situations.

In the first stanza of the poem, the second line is an example of imagery. The poet writes, “a darkness was ripped from my eyes” (Oliver 2). For centuries, artists have used “darkness” to portray the image of ignorance or lack of knowledge. A perfect example is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where darkness depicts lack of knowledge. Similarly, in this poem, Darkness portrays the image of ignorance. Therefore, the line, “a darkness was ripped from my eyes” (Oliver 2), means that ignorance was cut from the poet's mind. She learnt a new thing that she did not know before this encounter. The poet discovered that she should not discriminate people based on their work or profession.

Lord Byron’s works, such as Don Juan and other poems reflect not only the suave and charming characteristics of the Romantic Period, but they also reveal the nature of Byron’s uncommitted and scandalous life. Byron, like most Romantic era authors, was very unpredictable and opinionated in all of his writings. From the hatred of his upbringing, to the love of adventure, and also to the love of meaningless relationships with various women were majorly influenced and illustrated through all of his works and especially in “Don Juan.” Yet he still managed to infiltrate his poems with charm, romance, and heroism. Byron was a perfect fit for the Romantic Period and his poems and he was therefore known as a great contributor towards the era.

Two closely related texts, one that we've studied in this class and one that we haven't, that handle natural description differently are Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Lord Byron's "Manfred." Both of these texts' central characters have experienced trauma, and their portrayal of their environments reveal the effects that the events have left on them. While Coleridge's mariner is unable to consolidate his past and is relegated to constantly relive it, Byron's Manfred has protected himself from his unnamed vice by distancing himself from his feelings and environment. Obvious parallels exist between the poems, but what I found most striking

With “Night,” the eighth poem and first of the second section, darkness descends, bringing with it a series of scenes horrifying and pathetic.

The poem begins with the narrator's describing the poem as a 'dream' that ''was not at all a dream'', which already causes doubt and tension within the reader. The narrator then goes on to talk about

A Journal Analyzing the Byronic Hero, Those who Closely Resemble the Hero, Byron’s Writing Styles and Literary Criticism