The poem I am going to deal with in this commentary is the description of a woman. It is somehow not very clear what is the relationship between the poet and her and what are the feelings involved between the two. Still, even if the poet’s feelings are not very clearly exposed, by the way he describes her, especially in the first two stanzas we can deduce the admiration the poet is baring for her. We can even say that he has unwillingly fallen in love with her, and is now writing this poem to explain both to himself and us the strange phenomenon that has taken place.
From this point of view, the theme of the poem is similar in a way with Keats’s “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, as they both deal with the unexpected and unexplainable power of love. Still, if in Keats’s poem the love and the fulfillment of attraction are driven to an extreme, here this does not happen as the poet has coped with the thought of not having her.
As a structure, the poem consists of three stanzas, which can allow us to see a certain evolution of the poet’s states of mind in regard to the lady. The first stanza describes the woman from a more far-away perspective. It is the very moment of the attraction, when the fire is lit inside the poet’s heart, who is concentrating his angle of view, focusing more and more. In the second stanza the apogee of his feelings is touched as the poet is completely charmed by the woman, whose defects he turns into qualities and she is possessed by a “nameless grace”. The last stanza means coming back to earth, as the poet, though still persisting on her beauty has to notice that the woman has “a heart whose love is innocent” and “a mind at peace with all below”. The meaning of these lines is that the woman’s love and feelings cannot be disturbed. The poem has a calm ending, which together with the slow beginning and the intense second stanza make it very round and symmetrical on the whole.
In the first two lines of the first stanza the poet focuses on the appearance of the woman. The woman is seen as a cloudless and starry night. At a more superficial look this can be seen as a purely physical description, as the lady was probably dressed in a black dress. The stars, the glimpses of light would be her jewelry. Still, if we accept the idea that this is more than just a physical, almost literal description we should see what lies underneath the words. This metaphor allows us to understand the way the woman is perceived by the poet. She is the one that covers everything with her beauty, bringing light into darkness, as the stars do in a cloudless night.
Her aspect and eyes are a strange combination of dark and brightness. Though this contrast might sound a little bit strange at the beginning, it is a beautiful mean of expression. It describes the beauty and also the mystery that this woman has covered herself into. By associating these two characteristics to the eyes we get a better picture of what the lady looks like, as her black eyes are filled with brightness. In fact, this oxymoron is continued throughout the first two stanzas. The last two lines of the first stanza show the disappointment of the poet of not being able to make use of the light that comes out of this woman. He is denied the “heaven”, the privilege of enjoying wholly the beauty and light of the lady. This is where the dark emerges from, as all the brightness is shadowed by the sorrow of not having her.
The second stanza continues the description of the woman as a symmetrical combination of light and dark, of shade and brightness. This metaphor is meant to underline the complexity and harmony within the woman, not the superficiality or imperfection.
The view is now more focused than before and gets closer, visualizing the head of the woman in closer detail. Her hair is seen as the exponent of darkness, which is present in her “raven tresses”, in immediate contrast with the face. This one is filled with light. This perfect division of light and darkness, of “shade” and “ray” is associated to a “nameless grace” that is exercising its power over this very woman.
In this way the poet drives his divinization of the woman to a peak as he considers her gifted by a greater force with the immense quality of making cohabit both light and dark. The woman becomes the perfect shelter where the two opposite forces make peace and then cooperate in order to make her one of the most beautiful beings in the world. She is the one that helps and maintains this relationship of reconciliation as both forces are put in the service of a noble ideal, the ideal of beauty. Still, the combination of such different forces is made in perfect harmony, and the result is a “pure” and compact universe.
The last stanza leaves aside the coexistence of light and dark within the woman and tries to give a more general account of the woman and the characteristics that impress the poet so much.
The general word that seems to describe the facts in this stanza is serenity. Every quality that rests inside this being is in perfect harmony and peace. Things are described as if the woman is winning men’s hearts unwillingly.
The poet focuses again on the face and on the expression of the lady. The elements that seem to have a strong impact on men are her smile and her “tinted brow”. The falling in love of the men is done very softly, with a criminal-like perspicacity, as the men hardly realize the reasons, though they are obvious. On the other hand this seems to happen without her will, as she keeps her calm and imperturbability. Her mind is “at peace with all below”, and the love for her beloved has not been affected by the victims she has made during time.
This last stanza gives the impression of resignation at the thought of not having her. If the first two stanzas were full of impulsive thoughts that tended to describe her in a very exaggerated way, in this one the poet is brought more down to earth. We might even say that he is now describing her with a trace of sadness, of resignation at the thought of not having her. He is now trying to convince himself of the fact that an eventual relationship between the two of them or any other two persons would stand no chance as her heart is forever given.
If we now come back to the interpretation for the first stanza according to which the lady is dressed in a black outfit, we can find another possible trace of interpreting the last lines of the poem. Indeed, by associating the obsessive repetition of the black color with “a mind at peace” we can suppose that the woman is a widow. This is how we can find a meaning to the last verses. The author is sure that her love cannot be disturbed, as her beloved is now dead and nothing will be able to re-win her heart.
Next, we will have a closer look at the composition of the poem. We notice that the duality persists in what the words are concerned. Each first line of each stanza consists of two elements separated by comma, this double enumeration being carried on through the following lines. Either if it is two opposite or similar elements they are always put in the same phrase, in an unperturbed harmony:” beauty/night”, “climes/skies”, “dark/bright”, “aspect/eyes”, “shade/ray”, “more/less”, “tress/face”, “cheek/brow”, “soft/calm”, “smiles that win/tints that glow”, “mind/heart”. The poet, who perhaps wants to underline the happiness and fulfillment through finding of a mate, drives this duality to obsession.
We find the same duality in the succession of the lines inside the poem- the form of the rhyme, that is. Indeed, a line ending in a certain termination is followed by a different one and then by another one, again different but similar to the first one. This allows us to notice the hesitation and alternation of feelings that takes place inside the poet.
The poem follows a basic iambic tetrameter with an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. Each line consists of four meters with two syllables each, a total of eight syllables per line. The rhyme scheme flows as ABABAB CDCDCD EFEFEF. Alliteration is also used: “Of cloudless climes and starry skies,” in which there is a repetition of the “s” sound. The second stanza contains insight into “the dwelling place” of the woman’s thoughts, creating an insight into her mind by using alliteration. The repetition of the “s” sounds is soothing in the phrase “serenely sweet express,” because Byron is referring to her thoughts, and her thoughts are serene and pure.
The poem is special, also through the means of expressions that the poet uses. These are not of an extraordinary expressivity, but still are beautiful and add a little color to the poem. The first line contains two means of expression: “walks in beauty” and “like the night”. These metaphors are very helpful in depicting the woman, both to a physical and an overall extent. Further, the “light which heaven to gaudy day denies” is again a very expressive metaphor showing the power of such a beauty, as it can deny the happiness of a human being. With this, Byron transforms beauty in a defect and the beautiful woman into a cursed being, as involuntarily these can harm other people.
In the second stanza, the epithet “nameless grace” is associated to the beauty that lies inside the admired woman. More than that, the poet considers that beauty is a sort of spirit that lays inside the woman and that gives her glamour. This grace is present also in another metaphor, as it “waves”, the poet referring at the presence and the ways of manifesting of this spirit. The “raven tress” is an epithet meant to make us perceive better the blackness of the woman’s hair. In the same stanza we meet the inversion “thoughts serenely sweet express”, which does not hide any meaning beneath, but contributes to the image of the poem.
In the last stanza we can notice the apathy of the poet also through the poorness of means of expression. Indeed, there are no notable metaphors or epithtets.
The poem represents more than just a description of an attractive woman. It is an insight inside Byron’s mind and subconscience, a description of the effects of love. It is less important which was the real context in which he wrote this poem or which were the real elements that made him write the poem. The important thing is that by reading this poem our imagination has a certain freedom and in the same time is led by Byron, as he drives us to the checkpoints he establishes in the poem.
Thus we can affirm that the poem is an authentic piece of Romantic poetry, even if this current is by far non-conventional, but diverse. The feelings and the means of expression implied in the poem are definitory for Byron and also for the trend he was a part of.
This commentary was written for the History of Arts course at the International University Bremen by Ioan Hepes (http://hepes.blogspot.com). For more discussions on similar topics refer to http://worldlibrarian.blogspot.com/ . You are free to post comments on the Blog.