ROMANTICISM IN BYRONÆS POEM ôSHE WALKS IN BEAUTYö
There are several elements which offer proof that Lord ByronÆs poem ôShe Walks In Beautyö is indeed English Romanticism, a term which Wood (2001) describes as loosely applicable to a literary and artistic movement of the 18th and 19th century, the aims of which were a return to nature, a belief in the goodness of humanity, the exaltation of the senses and emotions over the reason and intellect, and the rediscovery of the artist as an individual creator.
The work of the Romanticists had several set characteristics and it is by finding these characteristics in a given poem that one establishes that the poem is romantic; and ôShe Walks in Beautyö is indeed Romantic in this sense. First, it is written in a basic iambic tetrameter which is to say that it is simple. As noted by Bloom and Golding (1971), prior to the romantic period, poetry and art in general tended to be complex and grandiose in structure whereas romanticism favored simplicity and naturalness of structure. Thus, its very structure is ôromantic.ö
Another characteristic associated with Romanticism that can be found in Lord ByronÆs poem ôShe Walks in Beautyö is that it is sentimental in nature. Bloom and Golding (1971) report that the poetry of the period preceding Romanticism (the Enlightenment) favored balance and rationalism. There was a real effort to move away from anything remotely emphasizing emotions and feelings. However, ôShe walks in Beauty,ö is sentimental; that is, the poem is governed by feeling, sensibility, and emotional idealism in its description of this woman (who was actually Lord ByronÆs cousin and not a lover).
Butler (1985) states that one key element of the Romantics is a longing for a simpler era, one that is not weighted down by the Classical world. This poem can be said to be romantic, at least in a small sense, in that it is evocative of this longing in the very quali...