Lord Byron
The one thing that almost all literary works ever written have in common is the portrayal of some kind of theme. Most all authors, whether you expect them to or not, try to covey one or more ideas about life to their readers. Some authors have very broad general themes, and leave it up to the reader to infer an exact meaning and apply them to their own life. Other authors, like most Romantic Age poets, have a specific idea about life or nature that they want the reader see in their work. George Gordon; Lord Byron is one such poet, and this paper will address three of his major works: "When We Two Parted", "She Walks in Beauty", and "So, We'll Go No More A-Roving". This paper will dissect each poem, piece by piece, to discover elements of theme. It will also covey the large role that poetic devices have in exposing theme in romantic poetry. Poetic devices are important tools that romantic poets use wisely, carefully, and appropriately. In Byron's poem "When We Two Parted," the theme is that it can difficult to find out a startling and unexpected secret about a close person or loved one. This poem is a lyric, which means it is about a personal topic or expresses the poet's emotions. This adds emotion to the poem, which i
The next poem by Byron is not about the pain of lost love, but of the joy of beauty. The theme of "She walks in Beauty" is that there is nothing quite as captivating as pure, flawless physical beauty and yet, sometimes you are able to see someone's thoughts simply by looking into their face. Summed up: Beauty is expressive. He starts out the poem with a simile: "She walks in beauty, like the night." This is a comparison to nature, which was important to romantic poets. It suggests that she is pure, calm, and perfect, just like the night. The first part of this poem is about the magic of gazing into pure beauty and being overcome by it. When dealing with beauty, it is important to use imagery, like in the line: "Which waves in every raven tress, / Or softly lightens o'er her face." These descriptions provide the reader with stunning images of this woman, and add to the understanding of her. However, he pays considerable attention to her face, like when he says "And al! at's also important is the use of hyperbole. He exaggerates situations like saying: "And the heart must pause to breathe." This is exaggeration because the heart shouldn't stop at all for any reason. Here he is just referring to himself as a whole. He then goes on to claim "the night was made for loving," which is literally untrue because the night wasn't "made" for anything. The night was not created by anyone for any particular reason. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Romantic poems have a lot to offer about every day situations, especially ones that can be emotional. The use of poetic devices in poems is not just happenstance. They are used to set a mood, create a feeling, or express an emotion. Romantic literature is defiantly a genre
Some common words found in the essay are:
We'll A-Roving, Summed Beauty, , Romantic Age, Lord Byron, we'll a-roving, walks beauty, poetic devices, pure dear, broken heart, sweet express, poem byron, broke vows, romantic poets,
Approximate Word count = 1198
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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