TO A SKYLARK

The pale purple even

This is where we find platonic and more difficult Shelley and where we witness more
Melts around thy flight;
philosophy
to understand the poem first we must understand the theory of forms, that is the platonic Like a star of Heaven,
part (more details online)
theory of forms: we as humans cannot understand true forms, we cannot witness those In the broad day-light
forms, but understand only shadows
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
our language is just a shadow of original
through the poem we will see Shelley's perception of the bird
reading the poem
Keen as are the arrows

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Of that silver sphere,

Bird thou never wert, Whose intense lamp narrows

That from Heaven, or near it, In the white dawn clear

Pourest thy full heart Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

All the earth and air

Higher still and higher With thy voice is loud,

From the earth thou springest As, when night is bare,

Like a cloud of fire; From one lonely cloud

The blue deep thou wingest, The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow'd.

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

What thou art we know not;

In the golden lightning What is most like thee?

Of the sunken sun, From rainbow clouds there flow not

O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Drops so bright to see

Thou dost float and run; As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought, Rain-awaken'd flowers,

Singing hymns unbidden, All that ever was

Till the world is wrought Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,

Like a high-born maiden What sweet thoughts are thine:

In a palace-tower, I have never heard

Soothing her love-laden Praise of love or wine

Soul in secret hour That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Chorus Hymeneal,

Like a glow-worm golden Or triumphal chant,

In a dell of dew, Match'd with thine would be all

Scattering unbeholden But an empty vaunt,

Its a{:e}real hue A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

What objects are the fountains

Like a rose embower'd Of thy happy strain?

In its own green leaves, What fields, or waves, or mountains?

By warm winds deflower'd, What shapes of sky or plain?

Till the scent it gives What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:

With thy clear keen joyance

Sound of vernal showers Languor cannot be:

On the twinkling grass, Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee: Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Teach me half the gladness

Waking or asleep, That thy brain must know,

Thou of death must deem Such harmonious madness

Things more true and deep From my lips would flow

Than we mortals dream, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

last line in every stanza is longer than previous ones, there is no regularity
it is very difficult to understand this poem, we must start from the title, features of the poem
We look before and after, in the title
both poems (To a Skylark & Ode to the West Wind) are odes
And pine for what is not: Ode is defined as an elaborately formal lyric poem, often in the form of a lengthy
ceremonious address to a person or abstract entity always serious and elevated in tone
Our sincerest laughter
we dont hail birds or flowers etc. but Shelley in this stage does, what is confusing is the
With some pain is fraught; addressee of the poem
one actually makes perfect sense (in Ode to the West Wind), but the other, in To the Skylark
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. is quite confusing
Wordsworth addressed immortality which is also very abstract concept
in Shelleys case, the addressee is something sublime
Yet if we could scorn the sublime is that in comparison with which everything else is small
West Wind is a powerful natural force, in comparison to it, people feel small and
Hate, and pride, and fear; insignificant
If we were things born The skylark is a little bird, who would ever attach anything sublime to a bird like this?
if we go back to the definition of the ode, important people or abstract entities are included
Not to shed a tear, then, skylark is not just a bird, there is something abstract
according to Kants Critique of Judgement, sublime is not to be sought in the things of
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
nature, but only in our ideas
everything deserves to be written about, it is the perception of flowers that Kant writes
about, the way he feels about it, similar to Daffodils (Wordsworth)
Better than all measures skylark is hailed, for him it is important, there is this sense of admiration, it seems to be
more than we are
Of delightful sound,
nothing in the poem is not at all related to the bird, it is made clear in the beginning, he
Better than all treasures addresses it as a spirit, he is not sure about its identity, he knows it is not just a bird
there is no direct reference-only in the title
That in books are found, absence of direct reference is here to understand why Skylark has something sublime
 poem is divided into 3 parts
the voice is addressing the bird differently In the light of thought,
at the beginning, Singing hymns unbidden,
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Till the world is wrought
Bird thou never wert, To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
choice of the vocabulary tells about the status of the addressee, the amount of respect and
admiration
we are misled in the title, the poem is not about the bird, this is more about something called
Spirit Like a high-born maiden
pronoun it is used all the time to describe the skylark, which indicates that he is not sure In a palace-tower,
about the identity of this
spirit defies physical categories in determining what it is like, humanly speaking he cannot Soothing her love-laden
determine from where it comes, from Heaven or near it
Soul in secret hour
he is not sure about its identity, but also about its location
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
That from Heaven, or near it,
that is very tentative, there is lack of security
later he compares it to a star;
Like a glow-worm golden
Like a star of Heaven,
In a dell of dew,
In the broad day-light
Scattering unbeholden
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
this may be the key stanza in the poem, he doesnt see it, he witnesses its presence through Its a{:e}real hue
its song/its art, something it produces
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
what Shelley admires here is the art of the bird, this deserves to be celebrated, admired, this
leads to the allegory of cave, limitations of human knowledge/perception to perceive things
fully
he is open about admitting that humans cannot understand what they cannot perceive Like a rose embower'd
so he says:
In its own green leaves,
What thou art we know not; By warm winds deflower'd,
What is most like thee? Till the scent it gives
something I do not understand or know, I compare it with the things I know
this is what human language is, comparing unknown things to things we know Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:
ex. love is compared to some of those feelings, emotions or situations we were into
in part II, still we will never know what Skylark really is:
as we can see from this particular context, poets were predominantly male
Like a Poet hidden then, we have a maiden, a female figure
 insect is introduced as it glow worm, this covers the spectrum of familiar concepts,
saying that Skylark is not any of them, but covers all, it is much more than that What fields, or waves, or mountains?
all four seem to be hidden out of sight, we are aware of their existence because of their arts,
What shapes of sky or plain?
they appeal to different senses
whatever human category we choose, or sense, the bird is more than those categories What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
comparison to a poet hidden is the most important because of the self-reference
poets by P.B.Shelley were named as unacknowledged legislators of the world, they are last part is just a catalogue of questions, the answers are not that obvious, we dont have
persistent until the world acknowledges them such knowledge
they are hidden, unknown, but also are unacknowledged, unappreciated, still they continue bird as something out of this world ignorance of pain, doesnt know it
producing their poems this poem is not about the skylark , it is about the incompleteness of the lyrical subject
they are working on our sympathies, they emphasise our feelings of empathy or fear when we sing the most beautiful songs, every time we speak we make it known that we are
Robert Burns is apologising to a mouse not complete, our art talks about this incompleteness, imperfections, comes from deeper
this is reminiscent of Aristotles concept of catharsis -pity and fear (that thing can happen to understanding of this life
all of us)
then, we have a high-born maiden, she produces songs to soothe her suffering, she doesnt
produce songs to teach us, like poet, but to deal with her troubles
we produce songs to deal with something we dont have, as humans, we never talk about
complete things, we always talk about what we lack
glow worm, again hidden, unseen, but we know it is here because of what it produces
the rose, which reminds us of Eolian Harp, cannot choose when it is going to smell, has no Waking or asleep,
control over it, even this comparison seems to be suitable
Thou of death must deem
every stanza in this part starts with like, we have simile as figure of speech
however Shelley goes further, Things more true and deep

Sound of vernal showers Than we mortals dream,

On the twinkling grass,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
Rain-awaken'd flowers,
that ignorance of pain comes from a deeper understanding of the reality, this life in general,
All that ever was
the existence; emotions such as fear, hope, sympathy come from the lack of deeper
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
understanding
meaning, you surpass every single thing we humans can produce
there are references to Platonic madness in last stanza:
he acknowledges human limitation, original forms are more than we can see in this world
(Shelleys scepticism of human perception) Teach me half the gladness
in 3rd part, he tries to request something of the bird, desperate, asks for some more
knowledge That thy brain must know,

Teach us, Sprite or Bird, Such harmonious madness

What sweet thoughts are thine: From my lips would flow

he is still not sure about identity
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
What objects are the fountains according to Plato, only divine creatures are free from hatred, pride and fear
if he understood, if he had that knowledge, he would probably be deemed as mad
Of thy happy strain?
 here he has one request, to teach him half the gladness, it is not just a part, but half
Why half as particular measure?
Plato believed that we were created searching for our other half, once we find the other half
we will be complete
Shelley accepted the fact he will never know everything but also never know more than one
half
what makes him different from religious dogmas - he acknowledges the lack of knowledge,
always aware of human limitations
we can always use our imagination to speak about the words we dont know, but it is
different kind of knowledge

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

the world should listen carefully as he does