To the Skylark Summary and Critical Appreciation: To the Skylark is one of the most famous poems in English literature. It was written by P.B. Shelley in 1820. This poem the skylark symbolized pure joy, freedom, and divine inspiration. Today in this article we will provide summary, critical appreciation and analysis of the poem, which will help the students to understand its literary meaning.
To the Skylark Critical Appreciation
One of the most splendid and passionate lyrics in English literature, Shelley's To a Skylark is also supremely representative of romantic temperament and of Shelley's poetic creed. The grandeur and intensity of imagination, radiance of imagery and opulence of soul-stirring melody fuse magically to create its haunting appeal. Inspired by a lark's whole-hearted sweet song that vibrates in the air and all over the earth, the poet launches on an imaginative flight and longs to be an ethereal singer like his lark. In his imagination the lark is a joyous spirit and not just a bird. It is part of the coloured clouds of early morning and evening skies. Being above the sunlight, which screens it from human vision, its mysterious charm serves to confirm its supremacy over earthly creatures and specially over man. Its song is so beautiful that all other beautiful sights and sounds seem inferior to it in appeal. The idealization is an index of the craze for perfection which Shelley's creative mind always sought.
Having woven a bright golden pattern of light around the skylark flying at a steep altitude of the sky, the poet compares it in almost breathless succession to a poet hid in the light of his imaginative splendour; a highborn maiden singing of her secret love from the confines of her tower-chamber; a glow-worm scattering golden light in a dewy valley, while itself staying unseen; and a rose covered in its own green leaves, while the winds carry her fragrance far and wide. In such imagery the poet's loving concern for the beauties in nature and in human life find magnificent expression attended with marvellous melody. The last comparison, in particular, moves us by its mythical sweetness as we are made to ponder over 'the heavy-winged thieves' of winds being "Giant with too much scent' stolen out of the rose.
While the freshness, beauty and sweetness of the lark's song calls up the images of the rainbow, 'the rain-awaken'd flower' and 'sound of vernal showers on twinkling grass', the inadequacy and inner pathos of human songs-even the most happy ones becomes prominent by contrast. Songs of marriage and of victory and those in praise of love or wine betray some 'hidden want'. And this philosophical trend reaches its beautiful climax in 'Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought'.
Romantic suggestions come crowding in his mind as Shelley tries to guess the secret source of the lark's delight responsible for its absolutely pure song. Love for nature's beauty and of someone of thy own kind' are combined with the skylark's prophetic knowledge of the deeper truth of death and of its freedom from annoyance and 'love's sad satiety' all probably contribute to its attaining that supreme joyousness which remains unachievable for man. Hence, the poet's passionate appeal to the visionary lark to teach him even a fraction of that 'harmonious madness' which will keep the world spell-bound to his song. Such a prayer clearly shows that, like Ode to the West Wind, this poem voices the poet's desire for reforming the world through his message of a new era preached through his poetry.
Thus in originality of concept, felicity of expression, richness of imagery and in its mood of emotional abandon, To a Skylark is, for its size, incomparable. A special dimension is given to it by Shelley's superior melodic skill. Each five-line stanza consists of four short lines followed by a long Alexandrine. Leigh Hunt suggests that through this measure Shelley 'expresses the eagerness and continuity of the lark'.
It has been complained that Shelley forgets his skylark while indulging in contemplation of nature's beauty and philosophical thoughts. True he is not disciplined like Wordsworth is, in his To the Skylark. The long elaborated similes, especially the rose-simile, have been criticized because they do not make the bird clearer to us, but distract our thoughts from it to dwell on their own beauty. Lamborn replies in Shelley's defence: "But it is their very purpose; they fulfil Johnson's second function of a simile, to ennoble its object. Henceforward, the little brown bird will recall to Shelley's readers a series of lovely visions whenever its song is heard. And thus one great end of poetry is achieved, 'to make this much loved earth more lovely', by filling it with beautiful associations."
Indeed, it is one of the poems in English literature which is enriched in many beautiful memorable lines and phrases like 'Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun'; 'Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought'; 'Such harmonious madness from my lips would flow'; 'Pale, purple even/Melts around thy flight', etc. It is, indeed, a lyrical poem par excellence.
