“She Walks in Beauty” has been one of my favorite poems since I read it in high school. What has always intrigued me about this poem is the multidimensionality of the woman’s beauty. Byron’s description of the woman’s beauty supersedes expectations of receiving shallow and superficial commentary on beauty; like the typical and expected descriptions of long golden hair, rosy cheeks, and fair skin. What makes the descriptions in this poem intriguing is how dynamic the woman’s beauty seems to be. This is evident in Byron’s exploration of her outer and inner beauty. Byron admires the woman’s physical beauty as it is in harmony with her inner beauty and her “heart whose love is innocent” (L18). The poem’s title itself also serves as a testament of the multidimensionality of her beauty. The unusual construction of a woman “walking in beauty” makes her beauty seem more dynamic and remarkable, as it surrounds the woman almost like an aura. She isn’t just an attractive woman, but the living, breathing, “walking” woman that she is is remarkably beautiful.
Through Byron’s usage of contrasts throughout the poem he conveys that her beauty encompasses everything, it is more and less, bright and dark, and it is “all that’s best” (L3). The woman’s beauty itself is that of contrasts: “like the night / Of cloudless climes and stary skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright,” and she has “raven tress[es]” that contrasts against her presumably fair skin (L1-3 and L9). Despite her beauty being one of contrasts, these contrasts have reached a state of harmony. In this way, Byron suggests that beauty is a kind of perfection that is achieved through the harmony of contrasts. True beauty is the perfect balance of everything.
