Summary of
She walks in beauty
Answers
Explanation:
The primary theme of "She Walks in Beauty" is the perfect beauty and goodness of an idealized woman. Byron makes no attempt to give his subject any individuality, instead making her universal, so that any man in love can see his inamorata in the poem
Explanation:
As its title might suggest, “She Walks in Beauty” is a poem that praises a woman’s beauty. More specifically, it presents that beauty as a kind of harmony that is as perfect as it is rare. Indeed, that’s the main point of the poem—that this particular woman’s beauty is practically unparalleled because of the exquisite harmony and visual balance of her looks. Beauty, the poem thus suggests, is perfection achieved through harmony. And as the poem progresses, it makes clear that this harmony is delicate and fragile—potentially altered by even the smallest of changes.
The poem begins by establishing a sense of the speaker’s wonderm at the woman’s majestic beauty. The speaker doesn’t say that the woman walks beautifully—but that she walks in beauty. This unusual construction helps with the sense that the woman’s beauty is truly remarkable, so vast and impressive that it seems to surround this woman like an aura or cloud. The poem quickly reveals what it believes to be the source of such beauty: the woman’s physical appearance brings together “all that’s best of dark and bright.” This suggests that beauty is a harmony between distinct elements—darkness and light. Beauty takes the “best” of these elements and places them in a delicate balance.
The poem then expands on this marriage of light and dark in stanza 2. Here, beauty is presented as almost beyond language, a “nameless grace.” The complex and intensely beautiful interplay between light (“ray[s]”) and dark (“shade”) is made possible only by the shape and contours of the woman’s physical appearance. This reinforces the idea that beauty is a kind of perfection achieved through harmony.
Part of the power of beauty is in its rarity. As lines 5 and 6 make clear, the woman’s harmonious beauty is not an everyday occurrence—this interplay of light and dark is the exclusive preserve of “heaven,” not the “gaudy day[s]” of life on earth. Beauty, then, also has an air of the divine or supernatural that contributes to this sense of rarity—comparable to sighting a comet or eclipse, perhaps. Furthermore, beauty is all-the-rarer because the harmony required for it to exist is so fragile. In the second stanza, the speaker outlines how even one shade—or one ray—out of place in the interplay of light and dark on the woman’s hair would upset her beauty; indeed, it would be “half impaired.”
It’s also worth noting that the common literary associations of darkness tend to be mystery and fear (in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, for example). Contrastingly, light is often linked to purity, beauty, and love (e.g., Carol Ann Duffy’s “Valentine” or Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) The beauty in “She Walks in Beauty” depends on both light and dark, bringing them together in harmony. Accordingly, the woman’s beauty is all the more powerful and uncommon. “She Walks in Beauty,” then, is a poem that cherishes physical beauty and perfection. In the figure of the woman that it addresses, it sees an unparalleled example of perfect beauty and seeks to explain it, even though it may prove impossible to characterize its “nameless grace,” as a type of rare harmony that brings together light and dark.
She Walks In Beauty is a lyrical, rhyming poem that focuses on female beauty and explores the idea that physical appearance depends upon inner goodness and, if in harmony, can result in the romantic ideal of aesthetic perfection.
Often labelled a love poem, there is no direct mention of love and no suggestion of romance between speaker and subject. Clearly there is deep affection shown, an artist's admiration for a female figure who is perhaps more of a symbol of purity and innocence.