Figurative Language and Musical Devices

1. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGES AND MUSICAL
DEVICES ANALYSIS
George Gordon Byron’s
She Walks In Beauty
By Putri Rachmawati

2. Biography of the Poet
 Born George Gordon Noel Byron on January
22, 1788, Lord Byron was the sixth Baron
Byron of a rapidly fading aristocratic family.
In 1798, at age 10, George inherited the title
of his great-uncle, William Byron, and was
officially recognized as Lord Byron. His
unrequited passion found expression in such
poems as "Hills of Annesley" (written 1805),
"The Adieu" (written 1807), "Stanzas to a
Lady on Leaving England" (written 1809),
and "The Dream" (written 1816). Lord
Byron was one of the leading figures of the
Romantic Movement in early 19th century
England.

3. POEM : SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all of that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven trees,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thought serenaly sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tint that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all bellow,
A heart whose love is innocent!

4. Figurative Language
Simile :
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
Line 1 there are words “She walks in beauty, like the night”.
They have meaning that “she” is beauty as the night. It is refer
to the line 2, “Of cloudless climes and starry skies”, the night
aim to the night without clouds and full of stars. So, these
means the woman as beauty as the night with cloudless climes
and starry skies.

5. Hyperbole :
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies
These line have hyperbolic meaning, because it means that the
woman has beauty that softly emitted from herself, as if her
light of beauty denied by heaven.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
In the line 1 and 2 have hyperbolic meaning, because it means
that if the goodness of her face has changed because of little
badness, it could depraved the beauty of the woman and she
become ‘half beauty’ or not perfect anymore.

6. Symbol :
One shade the more, one ray the less
Which waves in every raven trees,
Beside hyperbolic meaning, in line 1 also has symbolic meaning.
The word ‘shade’ in “One shade the more” means badness. And
word ‘ray’ in “one ray the less” means goodness. For over all it
means that a little badness decrease the goodness.
The word ‘waves’ means the wavy hair and ‘raven trees’ means
black hair. So line 3 means the woman who has wavy black hair.
The smiles that win, the tint that glow
In line 3 has symbolic meaning. The word ‘win’ in “The smiles
that win” means attractive. And ‘the tint’ in “the tint that glow”
means the color of her face. So over all it means, the smiles that
smiling attractively and the color of her face that glowing
beautifully.

7. MUSICAL DEVICES
Rime : stanza 1
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all of that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
In stanza 1, there are words night, bright, and light which have
repetition of the vowel sound as well as the words skies, eyes,
and denies. It is called rime a-b-a-b-a-b or called end rime,
because it comes at the end of the line. First similarity are
night, bright, and light thats called rime a. Second are skies,
eyes, and denies which called rime b.

8. Stanza 2
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven trees,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thought serenaly sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
Stanza 3
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tint that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all bellow,
A heart whose love is innocent!

9. The similarity also exist on stanza 2 and 3. As well as
stanza 1, stanza 2 and stanza 3 also have a-b-a-b-a-b at
the end of the rime. These similarities showing that
Byron chooses his word for sound as a mean of
reinforcing his meaning, besides in terms of aesthetics
too.

10. CONCLUSION
She Walks In Beauty by George Gordon Byron is poem about a
woman. She Walks In Beauty tells about the beauty side of the
woman. As for literary element, George Gordon Byron uses
some kind of figurative language and musical devices. He uses
simile to showing how beauty the woman like the night that
clearly sky and full of star. He put hyperbolic sense to
convincing the reader that the woman is perfect. Byron use
symbolic sense in word shade, it is not talking about shelter but
the badness. Byron also pay attention in term of aesthetics, he
chooses his word for sound as a mean of reinforcing his
meaning through rime on every end of line.