Lord Byron
...ere are no descriptions of the woman’s body; instead Byron chooses to emphasise her facial features: “ And on that cheek, and o’er that brow So soft, so calm, yet eloquent” Her eyes, hair, cheeks and brows can be seen to be doorways to her internal beauty. He explores the woman’s ability to contain opposites in her personality in order to attain a perfect balance: “And all that’s best of light and dark Meet in her aspect and her eyes” Byron’s emphasis on her interior beauty and her individual characteristics challenged society’s value in physical beauty. Romantic poets’ real links were with nature, rather than urbanised societies. Byron, like most Romantic poets, found beauty and inspiration in nature. Throughout Darkness animal imagery is significant, with Byron using animals to portray the response of humans in times of chaos. The snakes “twine themselves among the multitude” to seek comfort, mirroring the action of human bonding during a crisis. Birds are shown “flapping their useless wings” symbolising man’s futile attempts to bring light back into the world. He shows that in times of chaos all creatures are brought down to the same level, performing similar actions in order to survive. Byron association of dark and cold images of nature conveys the atmosphere of the poem: “… the icy earth swung blind and blackening in the moonless air” She Walks In Beauty combines both dark and light images to describe the beauty and balance in the woman’s character: “She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies” The use of these nature associated objects in Byron’s imagery, is an attempt to draw attention away from custom and tradition and towards the beauty of the natural world. Romantics saw no need for reason and logic in their quest for truth, but instead relied on the individual experience and the imagination. Darkness sets up a dream like atmosphere in it’s beginning lines: “ I had a dream, but it was not all a dream.” It allows the reader to explore an environment spawned by the author’s imagination, and experience an almost unbelievable situation. In this dream sequence, Byron is able to embed a wide range of values, such as the rejection of religious ideas. The men in the poem forget the significance of holy objects and lose faith in their once strong beliefs. This mirrors Byron’s revolt against his religious upbringing at a time of social upheaval. The poets’ imagination allowed...