She Walks in Beauty — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
She Walks in Beauty
The poems
What you need to know
The speaker admires a woman whose beauty blends darkness and light, and reads in her face a calm, good mind and an innocent heart.
How Byron's imagery balances dark and light, from a night of starry skies to her raven hair, and moves from her outward beauty to the goodness it reveals.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'She walks in beauty, like the night', 'Of cloudless climes and starry skies', 'And all that's best of dark and bright', 'Meet in her aspect and her eyes', 'Which heaven to gaudy day denies', 'One shade the more, one ray the less', 'Which waves in every raven tress', 'How pure, how dear their dwelling-place', 'So soft, so calm, yet eloquent', 'A heart whose love is innocent!'.
Form: three six-line stanzas of iambic tetrameter rhyming ABABAB, one admiring movement from her appearance to her mind and heart, and an exclamation to finish.
Context: written in 1814 after Byron met Anne Beatrix Wilmot, his cousin's wife, at a London party; published in Hebrew Melodies (1815), lyrics written for music by Isaac Nathan; and Byron's scandalous reputation, which makes this pure admiration stand out.
Compares well with: Sonnet 43 (admiring, idealised love), Valentine (a traditional love poem against an unconventional one), My Last Duchess (a woman's beauty described by a man) and 1st Date – She and 1st Date – He (attraction and appearance).
