Essay Analysis of She Walks in Beauty Poem

She Walks in Beauty is one of the poems written by George Gordon Byron. This poem is quite unique in terms of the choice and arrangements of the words and the implicit meaning in it. Many people think of this as a love poem, even when the speaker never once mentions being in love. If we have read the whole poem, we can feel how strong Byron’s admiration of the woman was. The use of soft and simple languages rather than heavy, intellectual words is also significant, as it demonstrates the pure, easily noticeable beauty of the woman. The woman portrayed in this poem must have been truly beautiful to catch Byron’s attention at once, and make him write such a vivid poem. So we can simply see that it is actually love poem that is created by Byron for the one he loves. 

On the other hand, the speaker mostly talking about the beauty of a woman. According to dictionary.com, beauty is the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, colour, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest). Yet, beauty in this poem is not only talking about the external appearance of the woman, but extends the internal aspect of woman.  The speaker seems to admire that woman by simply celebrating the beauty. In addition, the speaker or the speaker, really wants to emphasize the beauty of the woman with the use of a word “night” instead of “day” as she doesn’t really seem too bright to the other woman. However, she seems beautiful in a different way, just the way she is.



In our opinion, the speaker really idealizes the subject of “She Walks in Beauty” as we can see from each line of the poem about his perspective related to the beautifulness of the woman which makes this woman special. Besides, the speaker also uses the words “tender light”to give more description towards the beauty of the girl. It represents the balance aspect of a woman who is not too bright and not too dark, but calm, soft, and gentle.

Furthermore, in this poem, the speaker is not only talking about the beauty of a woman's appearance, but also talking about her character which is reflected by her appearance itself. In line in lines 11, 12, 13 and 14 Byron states that (the woman) her raven tress and her face are softly illuminated (light). He also expressed that her thoughts are serene, pure and sweet. So, it is normal if we think that her thoughts are in relation with her beauty. In addition to that point, the opposition of dark/light can bring the new meaning related to the inner beauty of the woman. Dark could be the internal beauty of the woman and light would be the external beauty of the woman, the physical beauty. In the line 15, it is implicitly stated that her smile reflects happiness, and brilliant as the tints. These things tell us about happy days, good days. Moreover, the following three lines tell us about the woman’s nature. ). Byron claims her mind is at peace with all, and her heart is plenty of innocent love. In that sense, Byron was explaining that she is beautiful both outer and inner.

Nevertheless, despite all the lines in this poem seems talking about the beauty of the woman, if we are careful enough in analyzing this poem, we will find out that the focus of the last six lines different from the focus of the opening lines. We think that the last six lines is more talking about the inner beauty of the woman which is reflected by her appearance. Yet, in the opening lines, the speaker emphasizes more only in the outer beauty of the woman. Also, we think that Byron’s portrayal emphasize both the spiritual or the physical aspect of the lady. Even though, Byron does not really talk about the spiritual aspect of the lady, but we can still see it through the appearance explained in the poem. The appearance of the woman described in a poem can reveal both the inner and outer beauty of herself.

For the last thing, we want to say in this analysis is that the poet believes that the beauty of dark and bright is at the same level, nothing is better than the other. It is proven by the “And all that’s best of dark and bright”. It indicates that the goodness of the light and the dark showed in the woman’s face. Besides, although most critics believe that the woman described in this poem is Byron's cousin by marriage, Lady Wilmot Horton, whom he met at a party the night before writing this piece, Byron doesn't mention his subject by name because interpretation of the poem change, knowing that it may have been inspired by a specific woman. Take for example, if he mentions the name of “Lucy” or whoever she is, there must be many people who know her, and since every person has a different perspective, it may also change the interpretation of the poem which is read by many people. Yet, if he did not mention the subject by name, all the readers may think that it may be just the general idea of beauty of the woman that he admiring.

Written by: Aida Shine (Me), Hafidz Wahyu (My classmate), Lutfi Wafiru (My classmate), Fikri                        Atmi (My classmate)

References : http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/beauty