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Essay on analysis of "She Walks in Beauty"

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Analysis of Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”
Lord George Gordon Byron was most notorious for his love affairs within his family and with Mediterranean boys. Since he had problems such as incest and homosexuality, he did not mind writing about his love for his cousin in “She Walks in Beauty”. Byron wrote the poem after he left his wife and England forever. Byron made his own trend of personality, the idea of the ‘Byronic Hero’. “Byron’s influence on European poetry, music, novels, operas, and paintings have been immense, although the poet was widely condemned on moral grounds by his contemporaries” (Dick, 54). Overall, the study focuses on the life of Lord George Gordon Byron, imagery, and about the lyrics of …show more content…

“This attitude of self-reliance is a distinguishing characteristic of both Lord Byron and his literary figures” (Parker, 88).
“She Walks in Beauty” starts off from a traditional picture of a lady as fair and bright. It links with the brightness of daylight, in its comparison of the mistress to the night. “The distinctive quality of the poem derives not from any departure from the norm but from a graceful elaboration of the conventions of compliment” (Seifter, 82). Avoiding unoriginal or obvious similies, Byron uses metaphors which expresses the idea of a quiet and slight glow. “The mistress like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies” (ll 1-2), not pitch dark but glimmering with a diffused light” (Seifter, 82). She is like a portrait in “chiaroscuro”, her face is copied through an interaction of light and shadow.
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Her hazy beauty makes daylight seem bright. “Imagery drawn from painting continues as a poet discusses the shades, rays, and tints that compose the mistress’s particular radiance” (Seifter, 82). The flowing lines, rhymes, and imagery of light and dark give the impression of elegant and simple compliment.
The poem starts off brilliantly. “The first four lines are beautifully phrased, and the opening couplet in particular has ingrained itself in the collective consciousness” (Blair, 1). “She walks in beauty, like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies;/ And all

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