George Gordon Byron From don juan

The following passage below is a description of the charming Donna Julia, a close acquaintance of Don Juan’s mother.

61

Her glossy¹ hair was clustered² o'er a brow

Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth;

Her eyebrow³'s shape was like the aerial⁴ bow,

Her cheek all purple with the beam⁵ of youth,

5 Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow,

As if her veins ran⁶ lightning; she, in sooth⁷,

Possessed an air and grace by no means common:

Her stature tall - I hate a dumpy⁸ woman.

62

Wedded⁹ she was some years, and to a man

Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;

And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE

Twere¹⁰ better to have TWO of five-and-twenty,

Especially in countries near the sun:

And now I think on't, "mi vien in mente",¹¹

Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue

Prefer a spouse¹² whose age is short of thirty.

63

Tis a sad thing, I cannot choose but say,

And all the fault of that indecent sun,

Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay'³,

20 But will keep baking, broiling¹⁴, burning on,

That howsoever¹⁵ people fast¹⁶ and pray,

The flesh is frail¹⁷, and so the soul undone:

What men call gallantry¹⁸, and gods adultery,

Is much more common where the climate's sultry¹⁹

1. glossy: shiny.

2. clustered:grouped together.

3. eyebrow: line of hair above the eye.

4. aerial: light and delicate.

5. beam: radiance.

6. ran: contained.

7. sooth: truth.

8. dumpy: short and plump.

9. wedded: married.

10. 'Twere: it would be.

11. "mi vien in mente": (Italian) it comes to my mind.

12. spouse: marriage partner.

13. clay: body.

14. broiling: making hot.

15. howsoever: however.

16. fast: abstain from eating.

17. frail: weak.

18. gallantry: polite attentiveness to women

19. sultry: oppressively hot and humid.

1. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?

2. How many syllables are there to the line? Is the number regular? And the number of strong stresses?

3. What do you think is the function of the final rhyming couplet? What does Byron attempt to do with this couplet?

4. Is Donna Julia an attractive woman? Make a list of the words used to describe her. Do you think the narrator of the poem likes her? Give reasons for your answer.

5. What is the narrator suggesting in lines 9-12? Where else in the poem does he reinforce this concept?

6. What is the attitude of the narrator towards heat and the sun? What is the effect of the sun on the human body? Do you think he is being serious?

7. What is your overall impression of the narrator from this passage?

8. Does the climate affect the way you feel? Do you think the climate can determine the character of a people?

9. What do you think about marriage between people widely differing ages? What are the possible advantages and disadvantages of marriages of this kind?

Percy Bysshe Shelly Ode to the West Wind

I

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

II

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread

On the blue surface of thine airy surge,

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith's height

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay.

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!

Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,

As then, when to outstrip the skyey speed

Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth;

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. This poem is an interesting and vital combination of Dante's terza rima and the sonnet form. Note how many lines there are to each stanza and work out the rhyme scheme. Are there any examples of imperfect rhyme? Is this sonnet different from the English Shakespearean sonnet in any way?

2. This is a highly musical poem. Find examples of how Shelley uses sound to reinforce meaning. Take into consideration the following: assonance, consonance and allitteration.

3. Much use is made of metaphor, simile and personification. Find at least two examples of each in the poem.

4. Shelley summons up the power and spirit of the wind through verbs of motion: make a list of the verbs he uses to create this sense of movement.

5. Each of the following headings corresponds to one of the five stanzas. Pair the headings with the stanzas:

• The effect of the wind on the sea

• The poet in relation to mankind

• The effect of the wind on the earth

• The relationship between the wind and the poet himself

• The effect of the wind on the sky

6. How would you describe the poet's state of mind in the fourth stanza? Why does he feel like this?

7. Does his state of mind change in the last stanza? If so, how?

8. What do you think the wind actually represents?

9. Bearing in mind Shelley's political and social ideas, what do you think the 'prophecy', referred to in line 69, might consist of?

10. The wind is described as both 'Destroyer' and 'Preserver'. Explain this apparent contradiction. Does the world we live in today require something similar to this creative/destructive force?

11. Do you draw the same kind of inspiration from nature that Shelley once did? Can you think of any moment in your life when nature actually inspired a radical change in your life or outlook?