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George Gordon Lord Byron “She walks in beauty”
The poem is structured around the ideas of darkness and light. Underline all the words connected with them in the text. What is the relationship between the two of them and the subject of the poem (i.e. a beautiful woman)?
How is the subject of the poem described? What does the poet describe and what does he omit?
Why does the poet choose to compare the woman to a night rather than a day?
What is the actual source of the woman’s beauty?
“So, we’ll go no more a roving”
Who is the addressee of the poem?
This is another night poem. Why is night here preferable to day?
What state of mind and body does the second stanza describe?
Percy Bysshe Shelley “Ode to the West Wind”
Describe the structure of this poem. How does the "terza rima" verse form suit this poem's subject and aims?
Characterize the West Wind in this poem - what are its powers, what effects does it have on nature (or the other elements in nature) and the poet? In what way does it embody both danger and hope? How is the operation of Shelley's West Wind different from natural forces in Wordsworth and Coleridge (or Blake)?
What is the traditional purpose of an ode? What does it seem to be to romantics such as Shelley?
What assistance does the poet seek from the West Wind? Why has he been "striving" with the West Wind, unlike the forest, who is also the West Wind's "lyre"?
When the speaker prays to the West Wind to "scatter my ashes like dead leaves across the universe," what is he implying about the nature of poetic language? How does such a prayer relate to Shelley's ideas about inspiration and expression?
Is the speaker certain that the West Wind will grant the prayer that has been uttered? What is the task of the poem with regard to the reader and perhaps to the human community?
In what way or ways does the organic metaphor operate in this poem?
"Ozymandias"What is the effect of narrating a tale told by a traveller from a distant land? Would the incident have had the same effect if he had had the experience himself directly, or if it had occured at a local site?
How are the octave and sestet divisions of the sonnet used to develop his point? The use of the final lines?
What is significant about Shelley's use of diction? The poem's rhythms?
What significance is given to the artist in this narration? What had been his relationship to the proud monarch?
What ironies does the poem convey? What is the poem's point or moral?
Is "Oxymandis" a depressing or a victorius poem?
“The Cloud”What relationship does the Cloud itself bear to the west wind of "The Ode to the West Wind"?
In what ways is the Cloud a characteristic Shelleyan image? What or who does it represent?
Why is the Cloud described four times as "laughing"? Does it reveal other human traits--or is it anthropomorphic to see laughter or enjoyment as only human traits? What is the Cloud's relation to other aspects of nature?
How do the poem's language and rhythms express its themes?
“Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”
How does one experience intellectual beauty? To what things does Shelley compare it in stanza 1? What do these comparisons tell the reader about its nature?
Stanza 2 is built primarily of questions. What subject do these questions concern?
What do the names of “God” and “Heaven” mean, according to Shelley?
The poem is strongly influenced by “Tintern Abbey”, among others. What are the similarities and differences between the two poems? The differences are especially visible in the third stanza.
What would happen if intellectual beauty was a stable part of human lives, not evanescent?
Why is intellectual beauty “to human though.... nourishment/Like darnekss to a dying flame”?
What kind of experience is described in stanza 5? Judging from the description, can anybody consciously achieve the experience of intellectual beauty through one’s own efforts?
What kind of images open the last stanza? What is the relationship between the mood they convey and the experience of creating poetry?
So, in the end, how would you define intellectual beauty?
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