Lesson video

Hello, welcome.

Thank you for joining me.

I'm Mrs. Butterworth, and I cannot wait to get into today's lesson.

So today we are going to be reading and exploring the poem "She Walks in Beauty" by Byron.

So you're gonna need to grab your copies of your anthologies and get ready to go.

So should we get started? So the aim of this lesson is to explain how Lord Byron presents the speaker's feelings towards the woman in his poem.

Now, before we delve into the lesson and today's poem, let's just look at some keywords that will help with our understanding of the lesson and the poem.

So these words are enchanting, awe, enamoured, Romanticism, and to speculate, what a lovely selection of words.

So let's see what they mean.

So enchanting, if you describe someone or something as enchanting, it's that they're delightfully charming or attractive.

It's almost like they cast a spell on you.

They're so wonderful.

So you are enchanting.

Then we get the word awe, which is a feeling of great wonder and/or admiration.

So you might feel awe looking at someone or something.

Then we have this lovely word enamoured, and that means to be filled with love for someone or something.

So you might find, you might just use this word to describe how you are enamoured with her personality.

Romanticism is a literary movement.

So notice there the capital R, and that means it refers to the literary movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in which poets began to turn their attention towards nature and the interior world of feeling.

So the poem that we are looking at today comes under that umbrella of Romanticism.

And then we get this word to speculate, and to speculate is kind of like another word for to guess, but it's about using the knowledge and information that you have to intelligently speculate.

So to form opinions about something without having the necessary facts or opinions.

So it's a bit like guessing, to speculate.

Okay, so today's lesson, understanding "She Walks in Beauty" looks like this.

We're going to start by reading the poem and then we're going to look at romance and Romanticism and how the poem fits in with these ideas.

Okay, let's go.

So as I said, today's poem is called "She Walks in Beauty".

Now discuss, with what information you have, can you discuss who might the she be, and what might walking in beauty look like, and what could it mean? Pause the video so you can discuss some of your ideas.

Off you go.

Excellent, thank you everyone.

So that's really great that you are using the information that you have already to make some intelligent speculations to speculate about what this poem could possibly be like and the content of the poem.

And this is a really good way to approach poems that you have never read before.

Just kind of thinking about who the poem might be about and what the poem might be about.

Making those speculations then can really help you understand the poem when you come to read it.

So it's time to read the poem.

So make sure you have a copy of the poem in front of you and you'll need to pause the video so you can read the poem in full.

You may want to read it more than once, and you may want to even try reading it aloud, which can really help deepen your understanding of what the poet is saying, where they've used punctuation and stuff like that.

So read it, then we'll discuss some key ideas and moments in more detail.

So pause the video so you've got plenty of time to read this.

Off you go.

Okay, excellent reading.

So I hope you're starting to understand some of the ideas in that poem.

If you find it a little bit tricky, that's absolutely fine.

Sometimes the archaic language can be quite challenging, but that's what this lesson's all about.

We're gonna make sure we really understand what the poem is about.

So now we've thought about the poem.

I want you, now we've read the poem.

What I would like you to do is discuss, what are your first impressions of the poem? Do you like it? Why, why not? And how did the poem make you feel and why? So pause the video so you've got time to discuss these ideas, or you may just wish to quietly think to yourself.

Off you go.

Okay, thank you everyone.

Some really great first impressions because this is quite a tricky poem.

So it's really lovely to hear you talking about, you know, the ideas of romance, the ideas of this speaker being completely enchanted by the person that they're describing.

So some really great things happening there.

Okay, so we have three pupils here, Andeep, Laura and Jacob.

Let's just read what they have said, and I'd like you to decide which pupil you think is correct.

So let's read Andeep's explanation first.

So "The poem is about the beauty of the moon personified as a beautiful woman.

The speaker is a man staring up at the sky, expressing his love for the first time." And Jacob says "The poem is written from the perspective of a brother who is expressing the love he feels for his older sister, who has taken care of him his whole life, like a mother." And then Laura says, "The poem is written from the perspective of a man who has just seen a beautiful lady for the first time.

He is enchanted by her." Okay, so whose explanation is right? Is it Andeep, Laura or Jacob? Okay, who's feeling confident? Should we get the answer? Okay, so the answer is, Laura, yes.

Great.

So yes, this poem is written from the perspective of a man, and it describes him seeing a beautiful lady who he is enchanted by.

So that's a really lovely way to summarise what this poem is all about.

Let's keep going.

Now we're going to look at the poem in a little bit more depth.

So let's reread stanza one together.

Now, I've just highlighted some words here that are a bit archaic, so maybe we don't understand 'em so well.

So the words are climes and gaudy.

So climes is an area or place, and gaudy means horribly bright.

I love that word, gaudy.

It's great, isn't it? Okay, let's reread the stanza.

And as we are rereading, I want you to consider the following.

So I want you to consider what does the speaker compare the woman to, and why is this unusual? And what is this stanza primarily describing? So let's read the stanza through together.

"She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies, and all the bests of dark and night meet in her aspect and her eyes, thus mellowed to that tender light which heaven to gaudy day denies." Okay, so what does the speaker compare the woman to? Why is this unusual, and what is this stanza primarily describing? Now the speaker compares the woman to a dark night.

He compares her beauty to a clear starry sky and perhaps suggesting that like the stars, she's unreachable.

It sounds very romantic, doesn't it? And almost, quite over the top.

You know, she's, "She walks in beauty like the night," and the speaker suggests that she has the perfect balance between light and dark in her eyes, again, showing what a rare beauty she has.

And this stanza focuses primarily on describing aspects of the woman's physical appearance.

And what this stanza conveys as well is this awe, this utter enchantment with this woman.

And the awe that the speaker feels when he looks at this anonymous woman.

And like I just said, he's absolutely enchanted by her beauty.

He's just, "Oh wow, she's just like the night sky." You can almost imagine it can't you by all of this quite exaggerated language.

So it's all about like that awe and enchantment of this speaker seeing this beautiful woman for the first time.

Okay, so let's do the same with stanza two.

As we read, I want you to consider what colour is the lady's hair, and select words which show the gentle nature of this woman.

Okay, let's read it through together.

"One shade the more, one ray the less, had half impaired the nameless grace, which waves in every raven tress or softly lightens over her face, where thoughts serenely sweet express, how pure, how dear the dwelling place." Okay, so what colour is the lady's hair? And let's think about those words which show the gentle nature of this woman.

So he describes, I love this, the raven tress.

So he's describing the tresses of her hair as very dark.

So raven is a word for dark and black.

If you think about the raven, or which is almost like a crow, the bird.

He's almost just using kind of natural imagery to describe how dark her hair is.

This black raven tresses.

I love that description, it's fab.

And then some words, which you may have picked out that characterise the lady as sweet, as gentle and sweet natured.

There's lots here.

There's words like grace, waves, softly, lightened, serenely, sweet, pure, and dear.

They all really link to this idea as this lady or woman as very gentle and sweet natured.

So why is it interesting that the speaker comments on the nature of this lady? So this is gonna go over to you now.

So pause the video so you've got time to discuss.

Why is it interesting that the speaker comments on the nature of this lady? Pause the video and off you go.

Okay, great.

Some really interesting perceptive ideas there.

So let's share some of our thoughts.

So it's interesting that the speaker comments on the nature of this lady, because he's seeing her for the first time, so he's only guessing what she might be like.

So he cannot know that she's sweet and gentle for certain.

So I think here there's maybe some hope that she is those things or that he's, from the way she looks, these are the assumptions that he is drawing.

So I'd like you to discuss further, what could this suggest about the speaker? So pause the video so you've got time to discuss that question or think quietly to yourself.

Off you go.

Great, thank you for those ideas in your discussion.

So let's just look at A, B, C, and D, and I want to check that we have the same understanding of the poem.

So how might we describe the speaker in this poem? Would you select A, B, C, D? Which words? Off you go.

Okay, so everyone that said B and D are correct.

So yeah, this word assumptive.

So lots of you picked up about what can be suggested about the speaker is that he's really assumptive, he's making these assumptions about what that woman is like based on appearance.

And I think it's almost like bound up in these ideas of what an ideal woman would be like in that time.

So that's really interesting as well.

And he's also enamoured, isn't he? Like he's fallen.

It's almost like he's fallen in love really quickly, or he's just completely overwhelmed with awe from this woman.

So those are the things that we should be picking up on in terms of the speaker in this poem.

Great work.

Let's keep going.

Okay, let's reread stanza three together.

And as we read, I'd like you to consider how does Lord Byron describe the lady in this stanza? And does he focus on her external appearance or her internal character? What qualities does he attribute to her? So let's read stanza three together.

We've got that word eloquent there, that's kind of sophisticated.

Okay, let's read it through.

"And on that cheek and o'er that brow, so soft, so calm, yet eloquent.

The smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent, a mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent." Okay, so let's look at the answers to these questions.

So Lord Byron speculates that the lady has a pure heart and a kind nature.

He again marvels at her effortless sophistication and delicate facial features.

He talks about her brow and that's so soft and calm, and you know, the smile that you know, tints with a glow.

Like he's really exaggerating almost her pure heart and nature through the description of her physical attributes.

And her, I love this idea of delicate facial features as well.

Okay, so what do you think the speaker likes most about this woman and why? How do you think she might react to this poem if she had read it and why? Okay, so pause the video so you've got time to discuss those questions.

Or you may just wish to think quietly to yourself.

Okay, pause the video and off you go.

Okay, fantastic.

Some very interesting responses to how the woman might react.

So thank you for those.

Let's just share some ideas.

Okay, so the speaker seems to emphasise the woman's innocence in the poem.

He really does, doesn't he? The, you know, the very last word of the poem is "innocent." So arguably Lord Byron finds her innocence very attractive.

And actually this was something that was a quite a dominant attitude in this century, that women should, you know, women should be innocent and pure.

So this was something that was really celebrated in women, in those centuries.

It was a dominant viewpoint.

Okay, so what I would like you to do now is find a line in the poem that shows the following.

Find a line in the poem that shows that Byron is enchanted by the woman's beauty, that Byron is enamoured by the manner of the woman, that Byron feels the woman's beauty is perfectly balanced, and that Byron is in awe of the woman's ability to charm other people.

Okay, so we've done lots of work on this poem already, so you should have a good understanding of this and know where to find those key quotes.

So pause the video, so you've got plenty of time to find those quotes, and we'll share our answers in a minute.

Pause the video, and off you go.

Fantastic everyone, I really have enjoyed seeing how your confidence has grown with this poem.

If we think back to when we started in this lesson, and reading that poem for the first time, it can feel quite overwhelming or that you don't understand it because of the archaic language.

But it's fantastic to see you picking out those key quotes and already really getting to grips with this poem.

So well done.

So let's just share what we have found.

So the first idea is that Byron is enchanted by the woman's beauty.

So the quote that I have is "She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies." So it really suggests that enchantment doesn't he, he's literally comparing her to the stars in the sky.

That Byron is enamoured by the manner of the woman.

I mean, there's plenty to choose from, but I've picked "How pure, how dear their dwelling place." You may have something different, which is absolutely fine.

Also use these answers if you are missing any.

That Byron feels the woman's beauty is perfectly balanced, "One shade the more, one ray the less." So you can see that "the more, the less" shows that balance that she, I mean, he describes her as almost perfect, doesn't he? That Byron is in awe of the woman's ability to charm other people.

"The smiles that win, the tints that glow." So that idea that all of her smiles just win over people.

So that's a really good quote to use.

Okay, fantastic.

So that's the first part of the lesson done.

So we've read the poem and we've started to get a bit of an understanding of what Byron is talking about.

And now we're going to move on to look at this idea of romance and Romanticism in the poem.

And I'm sure you've already picked up on this idea of romance, but let's just delve into it a little bit more.

Okay, let's keep going.

Okay, so discuss, where might Lord Byron have seen this woman? What kind of setting might his first glimpse of her have been in? Okay, pause the video.

So you've got time to discuss these questions, or you may just need to sit quietly by yourself and think, and that's fine too, but we'll share our answers in a moment.

Pause the video and off you go.

Okay, great.

So let's just share some of those answers.

So I've got the information.

So Lord Byron allegedly wrote this poem the day after seeing his cousin's wife, Lady Wilmont, for the first time at a party in London.

I can almost imagine the party and the scene and what everyone was dressed in.

So you, it's interesting that lots of you picked up on this idea of maybe a party or a kind of social gathering.

Like it's quite vivid to that image, isn't it? And supposedly Lord Byron was infatuated with Lady Wilmont and was in awe of her beauty.

At the party, she was allegedly wearing a black mourning dress.

Okay, so a black mourning dress is what women would wear after their husbands or family members had died, so that you would dress all in black as a sign that you were grieving, which is interesting in itself, isn't it? So which lines in the poem mirror Lady Wilmont's outfit, can you remember? Yes, that's right.

"She walks in beauty like the night" and/or "raven tress." So we've got this dark black hair or dark black hair.

And then "like the night," he's comparing her to the night, this blackness, or this black outfit that she is wearing.

So this original poem, this poem was originally published as part of a collection called "Hebrew Melodies" in April, 1815.

And it was actually intended to be set to religious music, which is quite telling in terms of how Byron viewed this poem and maybe viewed this woman, this idea of religious music.

So discuss, what might that suggest about the depth of feeling Lord Byron had for the lady, to think about this idea of that religious music, and what might that suggest? Okay, so pause the video so you've got time to discuss your answers.

Off you go.

Okay, fantastic.

Yes, lots of you agreeing with me about this idea of religious music.

Laura has says that it could suggest that he almost worshipped her like a god.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it really shows the depth of his attraction towards her.

Yeah, it's interesting that he's challenging this idea of like what religious, what a religious feeling is.

So in this case, it actually isn't linked to religion.

It's linked to this attraction or feeling towards this woman.

And we know that Byron was famed for his very public private affairs, a very public private life, including his many affairs.

It is well documented that yes, Byron had a lot of affairs.

His life is pretty interesting.

Now, Lord Byron is also regarded as one of the greatest Romantic poets of all time.

And notice here we are talking about Romantic with a capital R, okay? And there was a difference between this and the idea of romantic love, which we'll delve into a little bit more.

So what do you know about Romanticism or the Romantic poets? Have you discovered any Romantic poets before? Have you looked at Romanticism before? Now's your time to draw on that knowledge to discuss.

So pause the video.

Off you go.

Wow, there are some Romanticism experts here.

That's fantastic.

So it's great that some of you already have an idea of this, and those of you that don't have a clue, we are about to find out exactly what Romanticism and the Romantic poets are all about.

So Jun says, "The Romantic poets didn't always write love poetry," absolutely, "as their name might suggest." So it isn't always about love.

Romanticism was a literary movement in the late 18th and early 19th century, and it is incredibly influential.

So Romanticism has influenced a lot of poetry, literature, even philosophical ideas, right up into the present day.

So what this meant, Romanticism in this time was where poets began to turn their attention more towards nature and the interior world of feeling.

So you'll notice that lots of Romantic poetry has nature in it or refers to natural, nature, the imagery of nature, sorry.

So refers to the imagery of nature, because the Romantics were pretty much obsessed with the power of nature, and also the world of feeling.

So how emotions impacted humans.

Okay, so now let's look at some conventions of Romantic poetry, just so that we understand what we mean by this term.

So very often Romantic poets would use imagery from the natural world to describe both inner and outer human beauty.

So we've actually seen that in our poem today, haven't we? The Romantics had this delight in the unspoiled beauty of nature.

So Romantics loved wild wildernesses, so they loved the tops of cliffs with wild seas below.

They loved mountains, anything rugged and wild the Romantics love because of how it made them feel, that feeling of awe.

But there were also feelings of sadness that nature might be destroyed by mankind.

There was also lots to do with intellectual and political freedom.

So the Romantic poets were really into this idea that people should be, particularly men, were allowed to think freely and be as political as they wanted.

There was also this belief that the heart is more powerful than the head.

That this idea that emotion prevails over logic, which was a really quite revolutionary idea at the time, so this idea that, you know, feelings and emotion were just as important as logic and reason.

And they loved the idea that the eyes are the windows to the soul.

Okay, so what I would like you to do now is thinking about these conventions, I'd like you to discuss which of these conventions do we see in "She Walks in Beauty"? So pause the video so you've got plenty of time to discuss where we see these conventions.

Off you go.

Okay, fantastic.

Some really good answers there.

Well done.

So we can see here, these are the conventions that we see.

So using imagery from the natural world to describe both inner and outer human beauty.

There's also this idea that the heart is more powerful than the head, that's definitely in the poem.

And the idea that the eyes are the windows to the soul.

So descriptions of eyes and the how people are, so that we can tell a lot about how people are or behave by their eyes or their physical appearance.

So what I would like you to do now is to explain where we see each of these conventions in the poem.

Pause the video so you've got time to go back to the poem and explain those conventions.

Okay, off you go.

Okay, thanks everyone for your explanations.

And we have some pupils here who are going to share some of their explanations.

So let's read those together.

So Andeep says that "Lord Byron uses natural imagery to convey the beauty of this woman throughout the poem.

For example, he compares her to a starry sky." So there that natural imagery and that convention of the Romantic poetry is evident there.

Great answer, Andeep.

Well done.

And then Jacob says, "The poet itself is testimony to the Romantics' belief that emotion prevails over logic." This is really a good point, because "Byron seems overwhelmed by his emotions and feelings for this woman.

He cannot think logically." And that's really a really interesting point, isn't it? 'Cause we might read this poem and think he might be being a bit over the top, but actually for a Romantic, and the idea of Romanticism, this idea of your heart and your feelings and emotion being the most important, really that's what this poem is all about.

And Laura says, "We see the ideas of eyes as windows to the soul when the speaker described the lady's tender eyes, which he feels shows her gentle nature." And it's interesting, yeah, that he makes all of these assumptions about that woman based on how she looks.

So there's a real sense of those romantic conventions evident in this poem.

So well done everyone.

Okay, so let's see what you remember.

Which of the following is not a convention of romantic poetry? Not a convention of romantic poetry? Is it A, B, or C? Okay, people feeling confident.

So let's look at the answer.

Yes, that's right.

The belief that logic prevails over reason.

That is not a convention of romantic poetry.

Remember, they were all about this idea of emotion and feeling over the idea of logic and reason.

Okay, so second task.

So below are several students' statements about the poem.

What I would like you to do is I would like you to choose one of these statements and annotate it with evidence that agrees with it.

But then in another colour, I would like you to annotate it with evidence that disagrees with it.

So we've done enough work on this poem today for you to do an excellent job on this task.

So let's look at the statement.

So we've got Jun's statement.

"The poem objectifies women, reducing them simply to objects of attraction.

Byron judges the woman's character based on her looks." Okay, interesting point there.

Laura's statement is that "Byron's attraction to this woman is obsessive.

He makes no attempt to pursue her, he just observes her." And finally, "Byron seems to really love this woman.

This is a poem about love at first sight." Okay, so pick whichever statement you want to work with and remember, you need to annotate with evidence that agrees, and then in a different colour, annotate it with evidence that disagrees.

Okay, I can't wait to see what you come up with.

So pause the video so you can get started on this task.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done, everyone.

And I really like how you are drawing on those kind of dominant viewpoints from the century that this poem was written, as well as kind of contemporary ideas.

So there's some really great thinking happening here.

So we're just gonna go through an example of how you could have approached this task.

So this, the statement that I picked is, "Byron seems to really love this woman.

This is a poem about love at first sight." So we're gonna look at the evidence that agrees and then look at the evidence that disagrees.

So I've said here that "The natural imagery that Byron uses to describe this woman arguably reflects the depths of Byron's feelings towards this woman, the love he feels at first sight." I love that natural imagery.

"The fact that this poem was intended to be set to religious music, also could show his love for her as he seems to worship and adore her." Yeah, definitely.

And I think that's a really good bit of contextual information to draw on there.

This idea that originally it was going to be set by religious music.

And then the disagree.

"However, arguably Byron's love for the woman is surface deep, as he seems preoccupied with her outward beauty." And then finally, "Arguably, this is a poem about lust at first sight, as Byron simply speculates about the woman's character, he cannot know that she has an innocent heart." So we can see here that we're starting to develop our evidence to agree and evidence to disagree.

So there are multiple interpretations beginning to happen based on this poem.

So we have made it to the end of our lesson on the poem "She Walks in Beauty." So let's just remind ourselves of everything that we have learned today, because it has been packed full, hasn't it? So the poem describes Byron's first sighting of a beautiful woman at a London party.

The speaker initially describes her physical appearance before speculating about her inner beauty.

Byron was famed for his very public private life, including his many affairs with women.

Byron remains as one of the most famous Romantic poets of all time, and the poem adheres to Romantic conventions.

And finally, the poem barely mentions love.

So this could be interpreted as a more surface level attraction.

Okay, so again, thank you so much for your hard work today.

I cannot wait to see you again for another lesson.

So I will see you then.

Goodbye.