She Walks in Beauty

• • A mind at peace with all below // A heart whose love is innocent
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  • religious connotations - angelic - she is superior, her radiance outshines all - they live in her shadow - she is content with this
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  • could reference her body - she's innocent, virtuous and pure - heart and mind correlate similarly with innocent thoughts and feelings
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  • last lines juxtaposed - could suggest death, a projection of how she may be in Heaven (heaven sent, religious ideology) - last line - love that emanates from heart is pure, a match for her heart
• infantilising her, patronising way - male gaze - 'mind', 'heart' - stress syllables - speaker values them

  
  

  important - this is one perspective - could be very skewed
• • Where thoughts serenely sweet express, // How pure, how dear their dwelling-place
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  • praises her beauty - beautiful inside and out - idealised - thoughts are perfect, he doesn't know them
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  • dedicates poems to his biased opinions of what beauty is - forms a perfect image of how he wants her to be
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  • sibilance - lyrical, song-like quality - personality heightens her beauty - soothing like her features
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  • purity associated with beauty - saintly in her beauty - doesn't want anything to corrupt her - wishes to preserve her image
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  • goes beyond external beauty - youthful, innocent - metaphor for her mind
• • She walks in beauty, like the night // Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
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  • present tense - beauty seems eternal - romanticism
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  • imagery of nature - links to romanticism
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  • remodels Shakespeare's famous line in Sonnet 18 - compares her to the night rather than day
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  • she is never named - mystery surrounding her character - love at first sight
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  • simile - adds atmosphere to mystery - intrigued - true character blanketed in darkness - unusual - subverts traditional image of beauty
• sensual - compares to entire night - beauty is natural, original, unobtainable, superior and like no other - enough to captivate him, capture full attention

  
  

  romanticised - doesn't know her - power of love and what it can do to a person - already decided she is a good person

  
  

  CON - was in mourning, hence a dark attire

  
  

  contrast between dark and light - represents best of both - ideal mix - better than just being one or the other
• • And all that's best of dark and bright // Meet in her aspect and her eyes
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  • dichotomy of light/dark, aka good/bad - oxymoron - element of her life was dark due to mourning - perfect combination
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  • reference to Byronic hero - has flaws, but still a hero
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  • darkness - erotic theme - focus on time - death, mystery, behaviour - night hides desires/misdeeds - allows his desires to be explored
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  • two sides - personal/private - Byron wishes to discover both - human nature to desire what you cannot have
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  • mysterious but beautiful
• • on that cheek, and o'er that brow // So soft, so calm, yet eloquent
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  • express romantic tenets - displays beauty in transcendent, spiritual - physical aspects - superficial - objectified - fixated beauty
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  • rhythmic balanced - syntactic parallels - lyrical, methodical - ode - delicate - leaning stereotypes
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  • 'and' - neverending beauty - anaphora - her beauty + light that enhances it, elicits attraction - natural break in sentence, contrast from sibilance - emphasises flaw - her being without him
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  • could reference intelligence + ability to speak well - sibilance - field of serenity and harmony
• • One shade the more, one ray the less, // Had half impaired the nameless grace
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  • raven tress
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  • one slight change would alter her perfect beauty - idealised - male gaze - pure - balance of beauty would be corrupted - speaker mesmerised
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  • syntactic parallels - juxtaposition - gentle rhythm - captivating - struggle to capture her in words
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  • grace - god's love and approval - saintly quality - is a virtue
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  • raven tress - romanticism - allure of mystery - beauty closely measured by nature - juxtaposes traditional ideas - ravens associated with death - her beauty everlasts this - romantic ideology