To a Skylark (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- First Published: 1820
- Type of Work: Ode
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry, Ode
- Subjects: Nature, Music or musicians, Pain, Singing or singers, Flight, Tragedy, Birds, Joy or sorrow, Pleasure
The Poem
Like so many of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poems, “To a Skylark” describes a natural phenomenon and then uses that event as a jumping-off point for discussing the power of nature to transform men’s lives. Shelley wrote the poem near Leghorn, Italy, in 1820, presumably after experiencing the situation he describes in the opening lines of the poem: The sound of a small European skylark, which sings only when in flight, calls the speaker’s attention to the presence of the bird soaring so high that it cannot be seen by the viewer. Trying to spot the bird in the sky...
[The entire page is 1283 words long]
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