She Walks In Beauty by Lord Byron and Douglas Dunn's Reincarnation

Both She Walks In Beauty by Lord Byron and Douglas Dunn's Reincarnation

are about romance.

"She Walks In Beauty"/ "Reincarnation"

Both "She Walks In Beauty" by Lord Byron and Douglas Dunn's

"Reincarnation" are about romance. Although this is true they have

much to be contrasted. "She Walks In Beauty" is about a man who is

truly besotted with a woman who, from my observations, he doesn't even

know. I think this from the fact that he doesn't talk about anything

except for her looks and he says that he doesn't know her name:

Had half impair'd the nameless grace

====================================

The poet takes pleasures from the woman's beauty and, unlike

"Reincarnation" by Dunn, the poem mainly focuses on the woman's sexual

attraction. She is often compared to perfection:

Of cloudless climes and starry skies

This also shows just how infatuated he is with her. This is an immense

scale to put her on as it compares her not only to a section of a

country but to the enormity and perfection of the galaxy. This

metaphor also refers to her mysterious nature because -the poem was

written almost two hundred years ago, in the early nineteenth century-

not much was known about the night skies as it is so far away nobody

has ever been there. This also shows how little he knows about her. A

sense of adulation also occurs throughout Lord Byron's poem and it

seems as though he cannot criticise her at all.

This is completely contrasted with the bond between himself and the

woman in Dunn's "Reincarnation". We can say, almost certainly, that

"Reincarnation" is autobiographical, as we know that Dunn's wife died

in 1984 from cancer. I think the sudden and premature death of his

wife has been the inspiration for this poem that is so full of naked

emotion and so full of true love, unlike the lust for the woman in the

poem by Lord Byron, that you can almost feel his pain.

For now I know the shame of being late,

Too late.

This shows the sorrow he is feeling. It also hints at remorse, giving

us the sense that he feels slightly guilty about the death, which was

obviously not his fault. It could also be showing us that he feels he

has unfinished business with her or maybe he feels that he didn't have

chance to say goodbye because he was so unprepared for it.

The diction chosen by Lord Byron is very sophisticated. The words he

chooses to use, such as eloquent make his poem flow with a smooth and

graceful rhythm. The rhymes in "She Walks In Beauty" are monosyllabic